LAW OF THE JUNGLE

Demolition of numerous “illegal” seasonal hutments of the nomadic tribes across Kashmir and Jammu by the authorities has triggered an outcry in Kashmir and a call for the implementation of Central Forest Rights Act that acknowledges the symbiotic relationship between Gujjars and the jungle, reports Umar Mukhtar

- Umar Mukhtar

On November 9, when Abdul Aziz Khatana, 38, had just reached Aru road in Pahalgam where he works as a labourer for a contractor, his phone buzzed. It was his wife who asked him to get back to his home at Lidroo village.

“Some people have demolished our hutment (Kotha),” she told him over the phone.

Khatana left the work midway and headed back home. He saw the structure had been razed to the ground. “This kotha was made by my grandparents,” he said.

Officials from the Pahalgam Development Authority (PDA), the Revenue Department, and the Forest Department had started dismantling the structures citing encroachment as the reason. Khatana said that around 500 people along with the police personnel had visited the site to dismantle the hutments.

These hutments are relatively at higher altitudes and are used by the people of the Gujjar tribe mostly in the summers. As the winters come, they either retreat to their houses in the plains or migrate to the Jammu region, mostly to Rajouri and Poonch.

It takes weeks of work and around one lakh rupees to construct one single Kotha, said Khatana.

“I was living there with my six family members and had moved just days before to another house as the winter set in,” he said. “But our livestock was still there.”

Now Khatana has been offered space by his neighbours for his livestock.