Politics

Open letter to Home Minister Amit Shah

Sub: Settlement of 15,000 foreigners in Jammu

March 11, 2023

Dear HM Amit Shah,

Respected sir,

I had been going through old issues of leading local English language dailies as I have been writing two books (The 1998 Jammu revolt for a fair regime: Farooq Abdullah knelt to save his government and Nation betrayed: Essays on contemporary Jammu and Kashmir) since four years. I was just dumbfounded to see a front-page story. It was captioned as “Foreigners acquire citizenship rights in J&K with money” (Daily Excelsior, Jammu, Apr 2, 1999). The story was filed from New Delhi by Excelsior Special Correspondent.

What alarmed and shocked me was the revelation that an estimated number of 15,000 people from across the border were settled in the sensitive areas, including in the vicinity of Jammu and adjoining areas. It is important to note that J&K was under Central rule between January 19, 1990, and October 9, 1996, and National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah was the J&K CM from October 9, 1996, to November 2, 2002.

It would be only desirable to quote verbatim to the story. Such an approach will help put things in perspective. The Story: “Hundreds of foreign nationals are reported to have manipulated to acquire citizenship rights in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) between 1900 and 1998. ‘Impossible has been converted into possible, with the grant of State Subject Certificates to them as lakhs and lakhs of rupees changed hands’. The sensational disclosure is contained in a document prepared by government sleuths. A top government source said the document was the product of ‘strenuous research work which lasted 48 months’. And the document has termed as ‘aggressively shameful’ the official connivance facilitating the ‘aggressively political’ task of hundreds of foreigners obtaining State Subject Certificates”.

“Most interesting aspect of the research work is that as many as nine police and revenue officials in one district in J&K, who had, according to one report, received huge sums of money from financially rich non-Indians in the course of preparing the ground for their classification as bona fide residents of J&K, were offered encouraging amounts of money for doling out information to intelligent sleuths on how and when the illegal act was commissioned, namely, grant of State Subject Certificates to the outsider’, the document says”.

“The team of intelligence sleuths also consisted of two Kashmiri Muslim functionaries of the J&K administration. And their identity, the source asserted, would not be disclosed for obvious reasons. The team’s survey conducted in the Kashmir valley and in the three districts – Doda, Poonch, and Rajouri – in the Jammu region, has hinted at the involvement of dozens of local government officials, particularly from the police and revenue departments, in addition to scores of prominent ‘political activists and legislators, in the ‘clandestine lucrative trade’, of arranging State Subject Certificates for ‘an estimated number of 15,000 people from across the border’ between 1990 and 1998”.

“Huge ‘sums of money from across the border’, the document says, ‘changed hands while making possible the impossible’. At least 20 functionaries of the J&K administration from four sensitive districts – Baramulla and Kupwara in Kashmir valley and Poonch and Rajouri in Jammu region – have, according to the document, become fabulously rich by being quiet recipients of the equally quiet flow of money into their hands in the course of arranging State Subject Certificates for foreign nationals”.

“These functionaries as well as many others, largely benefited as lakhs and lakhs of rupees changed hands between 1900 and 1998 in support of the militants and foreign mercenaries aided and abetted by Pakistan, the document says, have purchased immovable properties such as land and residential houses and commercial premises in the vicinity of Jammu and adjoining areas”.

“Under the State Subject Act (of 1927), no outsider – not even India’s topmost constitutional personalities, namely the President and Prime Minister – can purchase even an inch of land in J&K for personal use. This notwithstanding, the document says that reports ‘have also been received with regard to the flow of lakhs of rupees from several individuals from neighbouring states of Punjab, Delhi and Haryana’ by the time each one of them manipulated to acquire State Subject Certificates in recent years”.

“According to the document, equally significant has been the ‘secret’ efforts by several non-Kashmiri members of the Indian Army, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), besides the RAW and the IB, aimed at obtaining State Subject Certificates”.

I tried my level best to find if any action was taken against those illegal aliens and those in the J&K government and administration, who facilitated their settlement in the vicinity of Jammu and adjoining areas and at other strategic locations for money and for changing demography of Jammu province, but I came out of the exercise minus anything. It would be only in the larger national interest if a high-level NIA probe is ordered to find the whole truth and bring to book all the conspirators.

I look forward to your action on this issue of great national import.

Yours Sincerely,

Prof Hari Om

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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