Amarnath Land Deal

[Guest]

Lalit Koul in Rediff
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->10,000 forest trees are chopped down to build the Mughal road in Kashmir. No one makes a noise.
Acres of land in the Kashmir valley are given to install mobile phone towers. No one screams.

Acres and acres of land in the Kashmir valley are allotted to lay sewage and drinking water pipes. No one objects.

But when 40 hectares of uninhabitable land is handed over to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board to provide better facilities to the Amarnath Yatra [Images] pilgrims, all hell breaks loose.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Let us take a hard look at the arguments presented by the locals who opposed the transfer of land:

1. The allotment would have adversely affected the environment around the area. <b>One wonders where these tree-hugging environmentalists were when the same government allowed the felling of 10,000 forest trees to build the 89 km-long Mughal road.</b>

40 hectares of land that was going to be used to provide temporary shelters and night-time facilities to pilgrims was in fact going to help in proper maintenance of the current day waste that actually pollutes the environment. But who can argue with senseless politicians who instigate people to come out on the streets?

2. The allotment is the government's ploy to settle Hindus from outside the state to change the demographics of the valley. Look, who is talking! One has to only go back 18 years in the history and check who changed the demographics of the valley.

<b>Islamic terrorists changed the demographics of the valley by ethnically cleansing Kashmiri Hindus from the valley. I wonder where these we-do-not-want-to-change-demographics-folks were when Kashmiri Hindus were slaughtered and the valley's demographics were altered.</b>

One would like to ask a few questions: a. <b>Is 40 hectares of land enough to settle so many Hindus that it would change the demographics of the valley?</b>

b. By putting this argument of demographic change, are the valley's Muslims implying that Hindus are not welcome in the valley anymore? And I do not mean the Hindus from outside Kashmir. I mean the Hindus from the state of Jammu & Kashmir itself. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another argument Kashmiri Muslims present is that the land cannot be allotted to the Shrine Board because Article 370 does not allow anyone outside of J&K to own land. Their argument is that since the J&K governor is the chairman of the board and he is an outsider, this transfer of land is illegal.

<b>How dumb does one have to be to understand that the land is transferred to the Shrine Board which is an institution based in the state of J&K and created by the J&K government. The land is not transferred to the chairman or the CEO of the board per se.</b>

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on a television debate on this issue asked why there is a need for land and new facilities when the pilgrimage has been going on for many years.

<b>Does Omar Abdullah mean to say that there is no need to improve the facilities provided during the treacherous pilgrimage? Is he implying that if the yatris were okay for so many hundred years, then why change and improve the facilities?

I have never heard him say such things with regards to the Haj pilgrimage. </b>Every year Muslims from Kashmir and the rest of the country want better facilities and subsidies for Haj pilgrims. But when it comes to providing better facilities to Shri Amarnath pilgrims, it becomes a sore point for Kashmiri Muslims and their leaders.

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