Part 2
I Ahmed Wani
The first part showed how land in Jammu and Kashmir changes hands faster than hot bread at a roadside stall, how a bill meant to help the poor quietly opens the door for the powerful. Now the story turns darker, quieter, and far more painful. It is the story of homes that were never sold, never given away, but taken all the same – the land of Kashmiri Pandits and the custodian property left behind in 1947. These are not just pieces of earth; they are pieces of people’s lives, stolen while the owners were running for safety.
In 1990, when fear walked the streets of Kashmir, the Pandits were told to leave or die. Loudspeakers blared threats. Men in masks knocked on doors at night. Hundreds were killed in cold blood. In a matter of weeks, over sixty thousand families fled south – to Jammu, to Delhi, to any place that felt safe. They left behind warm houses, apple orchards, small shops, and the smell of their childhood. Many thought they would return in a few months. They never did.
What happened to those homes? Most were taken. Some were sold in panic for a handful of rupees. A house worth lakhs went for thousands because the owner needed train tickets and a little cash to start over. The buyer got papers. The sale looked legal. But it was born out of fear, not free will. Many others asked a neighbor to watch the house. “Keep it safe,” they said. “We will come back.” The neighbor smiled, took the keys, and later sold the land to someone else with fake papers. Hundreds of such cases are still stuck in courts, moving slower than a winter river under ice.
Then there are those who neither sold nor gave keys to anyone. They simply locked the door and left. But the land mafia does not need keys. They break in, build walls, make new papers, and sell plots to innocent people. The real owner, living in a small flat in Delhi or a camp in Jammu, finds out years later when the house is gone and a colony stands in its place.
Walk through Pampore in south Kashmir today. Once, Pandit families lived in neat brick homes surrounded by saffron fields. Now, new concrete houses line the road. A family in Jammu still keeps the old sale deed of their ancestral home. They show it to anyone who will listen. But the man living there paid twenty-five lakhs to a broker in 2018. He built his house with savings from years of driving a taxi. Both families suffer – one lost their roots, the other fears losing their roof.
In Hyderpora, near Srinagar airport, the story repeats. Wide roads, big gates, new colonies with names like “Green View” and “Sunrise Enclave.” Many of these plots were Pandit orchards twenty years ago. An old woman in Delhi remembers picking apples with her father on the same land. She has the papers. But the young couple living there took a bank loan to buy the plot. They planted roses in the garden. If the court gives the land back to the old owner, where will the young family go? The real thief took the money and disappeared long ago.
Downtown Srinagar tells the same sad tale. Narrow lanes that once echoed with temple bells now have shops and homes built over old Pandit courtyards. In Babarbarsha, a quiet corner near Hari Parbat, a small Pandit shrine still stands, but the land around it has new walls and new owners. No one knows who sold it. No one asks.
The custodian property carries pain from an even older wound. In 1947, when India and Pakistan were born in blood, many Muslim families left Jammu for the other side. They left homes, fields, and shops. The government took charge of this land and called it custodian property. It was meant to be kept safe. Some was given on rent to local farmers. The idea was simple if the owners ever returned, they would get their land back.
They never returned. The land never stayed safe. Today, more than one lakh sixty thousand kanals of custodian land lie in the hands of grabbers. Most of it is in Jammu in areas like Mishriwala, Bhalwal, and Sunjwan. Officers, politicians, and mafia worked together. Fake papers were made. Plots were sold. The government says it has taken back only four thousand kanals in five years. That is less than a small village.
In tea shops and WhatsApp groups, people speak in soft, tired voices. Ritu, a Pandit widow living in a Jammu camp, says, “My house in Habba Kadal was sold for twenty thousand rupees in 1990. The buyer built a three-storey building. I still have one room in a tent.” Sameer, who bought a plot in Hyderpora, says, “I paid eighty-five lakhs and built my house. Now they say it belongs to someone else. Will they give me my money back?” Ramash, a farmer in Bhalwal, says, “My father was given custodian land to grow wheat. We have lived here seventy years. Now they call us illegal.”
The politicians are silent. PDP shouts about stopping bulldozers for the poor. NC promises five marlas for the landless. BJP talks of protecting Hindus. But no one brings a bill for the Pandits. No one speaks of a special court to clear the backlog. No one asks who will pay the innocent buyers who were cheated. No one says how the real owners will get their land back or fair money if return is not possible.
What is needed is simple. A fast court for migrant and custodian cases. Real compensation for those who lost their life savings. Strict action on fake papers and the officers who sign them. A clear report how much land, who took it, where it went. Let the public see the truth.
But truth is the last thing anyone wants. Bulldozers will roll over small homes for newspaper photos. Big colonies will stay quiet. Politicians will make speeches and count votes. The Pandits will wait in camps. The custodian owners will remain names on old files. The innocent buyers will live in fear.
Then i wrote on X: “Same story, new season. When will the real owners come home?”
The cry from 2007 still rings in the cold air: Roshni jo andhera hai – andhera ab bhi hai.
