While National Conference leadership was busy defending the multi-crore cricket scam to salvage the lost pride of its patron Farooq Abdullah, also President of Jammu Kashmir Cricket Association(JKCA), another multi-crore land scam has now hit the headlines raising question marks over the complicity of top brass of the party.
This time Hilal Rather, son of Abdullah’s close aide and former State Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather has been found fishing in troubled waters by the Mufti Mohd Sayeed-led alliance Government in Jammu & Kashmir.
When Omar Abdullah led alliance Government was in power in the State, Simula Infra Development promoted by Hilal Rather had launched a dream housing project in 2013.
On Wednesday the State Government stopped construction work on the multi-storey ‘Paradise Avenue’ apartments at Narwal Bala and also sealed the premises in Jammu.
The State Government cracked its whip after it was confirmed by a high-level inquiry committee report that the developers were carrying out the construction activity in violation of the High Court directions.
According to official sources, “ in September 2014 the Division bench of the State High Court had imposed a ban on any kind of construction on the land, which has been recorded as ‘khad’ in the revenue records.
The proposed construction site was located close to the Narwal bypass road along the natural axis of ‘nullah’(natural water channel).
The advance bookings were done after launching the advertisement blitzkrieg and roping in cricket stars with lucrative offers to promote the dream housing project.
Prominent citizens, senior bureaucrats, State Government officers, retired Army and police personnel, businessmen from Kashmir and Jammu have booked dream houses in the dream project.
Jammu and Kashmir Bank financed the project at a time when senior National Conference leader Abdul Rahim Rather headed the State Finance Ministry.
For a long time the State Government agencies were receiving complaints from different quarters with ‘graphic’ details of violations.
The State Government was forced to act on the complaints after fresh allegations surfaced that the State Government had penalised common man found encroaching the ‘khad’ but the big land sharks were spared by the Revenue department by not bringing their violations in record books.
According to official sources, Tehsildar Bahu implemented the directions of the High Court in the context of “Paradise Avenue” on wednesday by sealing the construction site.
“The work on Paradise Avenue at Narwal Bala under Khasra No. 260 has been stopped and the entire under construction building has been kept under the supervision of Incharge Police Post Narwal for ensuring that no further construction takes place”, the order issued by the office of Tehsildar Bahu stated.
Official sources also claimed that Khasra No.260 in village Narwal Bala is recorded as Gair Mumkin Khad (water channel) in the Jamabandhi of 1956-57.
As per the revenue records of 1956, the maximum width of the Narwal Bala Khad was 800 feet (near highway) and minimum as 275 feet”. “At the place where the Paradise Avenue apartments are constructed, this nullah has the narrowest width, which establishes encroachment of water body”,official sources claimed.