What justification does the government have to come to the northern regions and occupy people’s wilderness lands? There is no place to grow crops here. Not a home place. So what else should we talk about?’
This is said by a resident of the Haramosh area of Gilgit. I met him in Shuta village of Haramush, where the conflict between the government and local people over land ownership is raging.
Thus, the areas of Gilgit-Baltistan are famous for tourism, but apart from tourism, this area is surrounded by many problems, the most prominent of which is the issue of land ownership.
After talking to the local people, it was found that the dispute is not about one or two villages but many areas that want the law of lands taken in the name of ‘Khalsa Sarkar’ to be abolished.
Let’s talk about what Khalsa Sarkar is later, but first, we talk about the problems faced by the residents of Gilgit, these villages of Gilgit have been settled here for decades, but as a result of the development work done in the last few years, now the people claim They are being removed from their native lands without compensation.
Whether it is a degree college or a cancer hospital, locals claim that it is land taken from the people on which these structures are now built, resulting in protests every few months.
The biggest protest in Gilgit took place in January this year, but even after that, people continued to put forward their demands through protests.
To understand the land issue, I first visited Shuta, a village in Haramush. Residents of Shuta village are currently involved in a legal battle with the government.
‘We were pushed back from our lands and placed in the mountains’
The way to reach Shuta is very difficult and narrow and there are people living in the middle of this mountain. In these narrow streets, there is limited space for people to live and cultivate.
An example of this is that most of the houses have a deep moat right below them and the locals say that it is getting a little bit deeper every day, which may cause the houses to collapse after some time.
People say that they were evicted by the government from the places where they had settled before saying that they did not have the papers of those places.
‘In earlier times there were no documents. Our forefathers settled here and had pastures for their animals. Then the government said that all these lands belonged to the government under the law of ‘Khalisa Sarkar’.
What justification does the government have to occupy the lands settled by the people? The situation has become that now our living space has become narrow because we have been pushed back from our lands and brought here in the mountains.’
Now the only demand of these people is that they should be given ownership of their lands and until that happens, they will continue to fight through the courts.
But this story is not only limited to this area but also in Hunza and Skardu the land ownership dispute has increased.
What is Khalsa Sarkar?
The term Khalsa Sarkar is used for the Sikh government in Gilgit-Baltistan that lasted from 1799 to 1849.
The lands occupied by the Sikh Empire within and outside Gilgit are known as ‘Khalsa Sarkar Zameen’.
Under the law of Khalsa Sarkar, the Government occupied the Ganjanabad (or vacant) land, and since the partition of the subcontinent, this law is still prevalent in Pakistan.
Currently, there is a land ownership dispute in Chilas, Maqpondas, Das, Konodas, and Dongdas, while the people have forgotten the land disputes among their villages and united and now their aim is to get ownership of their land from the government. have to do
Now, decades later, the locals want to abolish this law.
This land dispute has been prolonged to such an extent that Hramosh has forgotten his enmity with another village, Chammogarh, and has included it with him.
Ehtishamul Haque of Chammogarh village says that as a result of the development works on his ancestral lands, the land became narrow for him.
‘We have a lot of wastelands. On this, we can bring water and settle it, but on the one hand, the government is not leaving us because Section 144 has been imposed on Khalsa government lands.
‘For this reason, the lands we are sitting on are now our limited lands. Since our ancestors came here 200 years ago, only a thousand families have remained here.’
Ehtisham said that he has no objection to the land that the government wants, but he should be compensated instead.
In this regard, lands have been taken by the federal government for projects related to CPEC, for which we contacted the Minister of Planning Ahsan Iqbal in the previous government to know his position, but so far there has been no response from him.
Ehtisham said that the government is not compensating them “and now this law should be abolished.”
This is the question when I asked the Minister of Law of Gilgit Sohail Abbas whether should the law of Khalsa Sarkar be abolished? So, instead of opposing it, he said, ‘Yes, God willing, because in our current draft of land reforms, two types of land have been identified. Accordingly, if people’s land has been acquired illegally, we will vacate it and distribute it among the people.
He said that the law of the Khalsa government is being used in a wrong way and as a result, all the land ownership issues end up on the Khalsa government.
Recently, local people also forced politicians to submit a resolution to the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly. Under the resolution, the local people have demanded the abolition of neo-population laws, giving people the right to own their lands and participate in the CPEC projects for Gilgit.
But whether doing so will save their lands or get them compensation in return is not guaranteed at this time.
Jameel Ahmed, who is associated with the Pakistan People’s Party, helps the people of the area to submit documents under the ownership rights.
He said that ‘we can call this region an administrative province, it is not a constitutional province. It is an administrative province in which the administrative setup of the province is complete. There is an assembly. Earlier, matters continued to deteriorate because legislative authority was not here, Kashmir Affairs was with it. The Prime Minister had it.
This power came to this assembly for the first time in the year 2009, but I will try my best to highlight the problems of the people through the assembly.
Ehtishamul Haque said that these politicians are also responsible for this deteriorating situation. Those who talk one thing while in the opposition and talk another thing when they come to the government. Whether they are with us or not, we will take our lands from them.’
By the way, this region of Gilgit-Baltistan is very important for Pakistan, but the local people say that they will oppose with every possible platform to stop the development works on the lands of their ancestors and now it is clear that as long as the land Unless a lasting solution to ownership is found, this conflict will continue to flourish in the region.
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