Take Javaid Ahmad Sudagar, who had a small orchard at Puongon, Achawal. “It had 110 fruit-bearing trees. Then one day in 1997, they (army) came and destroyed it. I went there the next day and they didn’t allow me to go in.” Sudagar never returned.

The story is no different in Kashmir’s apple bowl of Sopore-Rafiabad-Baramulla in north Kashmir, where a majority of people are directly linked to apple trade. So in Baramulla, the 21-kanal orchard of Abdul Khaliq Channa, 40, was taken over by the army and turned into a firing range. “I see my trees drying after being hit by bullets. I used to sell 4,000 apple boxes every year and now they don’t even let me go in,” he says. “I don’t need any compensation. I just want my orchard back.”

The problem stretches from Anantnag to Uri, says Ghulam Rasool Bhat, president of the J&K Fruit Growers Association. “Even if the army decides to vacate the orchards, it will take a decade to restore the yield. The apple orchards are in ruins.”

The army, however, has a different view. “Whatever land has been taken over by the army across Kashmir has been done with the consent and knowledge of the civil administration,” says defence spokesman, Lt Col A.K. Mathur. “The Ministry of Defence has already paid adequate compensation to the state government and land owners.”

As per the J&K Government figures, the army has unauthorisedly taken over 11,609 kanal and 11 marlas of orchards since 1990, while they pay a yearly rent to farmers for another 4,000 kanal and 16 marlas, and of the total 6,81,839 kanal of government land, the army has unauthorisedly occupied 3,10,184 kanal.

... contd.