The Hindu : National : Bus opens evacuees' property issue

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Friday, Apr 22, 2005

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National

Bus opens evacuees' property issue

Shujaat Bukhari

Pakistani woman claims ancestral house

SRINAGAR: Fareeda Gani, who travelled by the first Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus on April 7,opened a "closed chapter" by reclaiming her ancestral property here.

Ms. Gani is the daughter of Kashmir's first Barrister, Abdul Gani Renthu, who left his home in 1949 following differences with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah.

Her arrival was a joyous occasion for her relatives here as she came back after five decades. Ms. Gani, who was accompanied by her brother Mehboob, left for Muzaffarabad on Thursday but not before starting a legal battle with the State Government. When she was three years old, her family left behind several houses and substantial land. These were taken over by the Evacuees Property Wing of the Revenue Department along with thousands of other houses and nearly two-lakh acres vacated by those who went across the Line of Control.

Now Ms. Gani's ancestral house in Buchwara houses a government school. An Edwardian mansion, built by her father in the 1930s, is the official residence of the Vice-Chancellor of the Kashmir University, Abdul Wahid. The Indian Telephone Industries has its factory and offices on the land once owned by Ms. Gani and her family.

Mr. Wahid said: "We are tenants in this house and we pay rent of about Rs. 4,000 to the Evacuee Department."

Before boarding the bus to Muzaffarabad, Ms. Gani said: "I have returned after 56 years and am claiming what is rightly mine and has always been so." Her lawyer, Abdul Khaliq Sheikh, filed a suit on her behalf before the designated authority. "No one ever thought that the properties would ever be reclaimed. And with the bus service, there could be claimants arriving every fortnight," said Mr. Sheikh. "The law is clear that the government is simply a caretaker. It states that once the rightful owner claims and establishes his or her title, he or she is entitled to all the property rights as if the property has not been declared as evacuee property." Ms. Gani has given him the power of attorney to pursue the case with a promise to return.

Azad Ahmed Lone, Custodian General of Evacuees Property, confirmed that Ms. Gani had approached the department to claim her property. "But it is too early to say anything on the issue, since the Resettlement [of people who have migrated from here] Bill passed by the Assembly is in the Supreme Court and the property can be restored to Indian citizens only and the claimant is a Pakistani national," he told The Hindu .

However, the case has created panic among thousands of people, particularly in the Jammu region, who are holding these properties.

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