Srinagar, May 4, 2005: (greaterkashmir.com) Jammu and Kashmir Trade Union Center (TUC) organised a function in connection with May Day on May 2, at Pahalgam in district Islamabad.

According to a spokesman of the TUC, hundreds of employees and workers attended the function. The function was organised by the TUC tehsil president Pahalgam Muhammad Ramzan Malik and chief patron Abdul Rashid Zaildar. The TUC spokesman B A Ganai, MEF president Ghulam Muhammad Dhobi, HEU president Muhammad Farooq Khan and other office-bearers, including B A Mir and Mushtaq Ahmad Chaloo also participated in the function.

Addressing the function, B A Ganai dilated on the importance of May Day and urged the employees and workers to strengthen the hands of sincere, honest, efficient and bold leadership. He urged the employees and workers to keep a vigilant eye on the elements who, according to him, were all set to divide them. He expressed satisfaction that the employees and workers had enough vision to differentiate between sincere and selfish elements. He alleged that these elements were acting upon the dictates of some agencies. He paid tributes to all the martyrs of May Day.

The MEF president G M Dhobi, while speaking on the occasion, highlighted the problems of employees and workers. The tehsil president M Ramzan Malik, chief patron A R Zaildar also spoke at the function and stressed for unity among all employees.

Pahalgam, June 12, 2005 (Arshad Hamid, Greater Kashmir): Pahalgam, June 12: Bakerwals are threatening to launch agitation if they aren’t allowed to graze their cattle in some forest zones of Islamabad district. Last year when their votes were needed, the People’s Democratic Party recommended wildlife authorities not to restrict their movement into the forest zones where officials cite concern for wildlife as the reason for restriction. This year, when no elections are in sight, the authorities haven’t allowed them to venture into the forests.

Hundreds of Gujjar Bakerwal families who migrate to the Valley in summers to graze cattle in the upper reaches of some areas have threatened agitation if they are denied the permission.

Although the Wildlife Department restricted their movement in 2002 when certain compartments in the entire forest area of Islamabad were handed over to the department for development of a wildlife sanctuary, the nomadic cattle herders have been evading these restrictions on political recommendations.

Sources within the wildlife department disclosed that for the last two years the department failed to check the incursions into the forestland demarcated for sanctuary owing to the elections, in which Mehbooba Mufti and her father and Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed were declared winners.

Sources said the recommendations from the ruling party were “the major hindrance to effect the ban on their entry.”

“Last time the Bakerwals had hung photocopies of the letters issued by Mehbooba Mufti in the necks of their cattle and proceeded into the restricted zones,” said an employee pleading anonymity.

Talking to Greater Kashmir, the Gujjar and Bakerwals, who claim to have been living in these areas since generations during summers accuse wildlife department of intensifying restrictions only this year besides carrying demarcations and plantations in the open patches inside the forest.

“Our Khotas (mud huts) are intact there and how can we leave them. Moreover tell us where shall we go with our livestock, if not given permission inside the jungles. They are planting trees and fencing the area,” says Muhammad Yusuf Poswal of Dohwat, who has halted his herd of buffaloes for the past three days on the banks of Lidder River. “See my cattle are dying here. Tell them to throw my family along with this stock in Lidder,” he said.

The Gujjar and Bakerwals said last year they were freely allowed on the recommendation of the PDP President Mehbooba Mufti. “Veeri Sahib (Minister of State for Home) accompanied us to the forests last year. Why they kept mum when we showed them letters of Mehooba Ji last time. We have voted to the Muftis only for this thing otherwise tell us shall we vote like others for government jobs?,” said Jumma Poswal, showing couple of recommendations by Mehbooba and Forest Minister G.M.Sofi to Deputy Forest Officer, Wildlife Bijbehara and Chief Wildlife Warden. The recommendations directed the officers not to restrict them.

One such letter issued by Mehbooba on the PDP letterhead, duly signed and stamped, when she was MLA of Pahalgam and Vice President of PDP, reads as: “DFO Sahib, Wildlife Bijbehara. I have taken up the matter with your higher ups. Please do not harass them till further orders. I would be obliged.”

The halting of the Gujjar and Bakerwals on the banks of roaring river Lidder is causing inconvenience to the tourists visiting the place as the refuse of the buffaloes, sheep and goats is littered every where.

“Government should do alternate arrangement to them as their presence here causes inconvenience to the people,” suggested Asifa, a University student, who had come on an excursion to the place along with his friends.

The officials of the Wildlife Department manning the area talking to Greater Kashmir expressly rejected their movement in the Aru Aadoo Wildlife Range.

“We cannot allow them in our areas as they with their herds of livestock create havoc in the area, which is not allowed in the sanctuary. Moreover they destroy the fruit bearing plantations, that department planted for the wild animals in the open patches in the forest,” said Manzoor Ahmad Wani, Range Officer, Wildlife Range, Lidder Valley.

Wildlife Warden South, Abdul Rouf Zargar said, “there are some zones where they can move freely. We can allow them only in buffer zones but not in the core zones. After entering the core zones, they disturb the wildlife there and even resort to the killing wild animals.”

Asked why the department bowed before political recommendations and allowed the Gujjar and Bakerwals in the past, he said: “They might have entered from somewhere. The department is lacking adequate facilities and staff to check their movement completely.”

As per the Wildlife Protection Act 1978 of the J&K State, the movement in the sanctuary area is restricted and any sort of external interference damaging the sanctuary is strictly prohibited.