Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday denied the administration’s allegations that his residence was built on illegally occupied land, NDTV reported.
The administration, in its second list of beneficiaries of the Roshni Act published on Tuesday, also named Abdullah’s sister Suraiya Matto and son Omar Abdullah as “encroachers” of the state land, according to The Indian Express.
“I have purchased every inch of land where my house was built in 1998,” Farooq Abdullah told NDTV. “Falsehood is being unleashed to defame me.”
Stating that it is important to clarify, the party said the land on which Farooq’s residential house in Jammu is built has “nothing to do with Roshni scheme”.
“The malicious nature of the allegations are laid bare by the fact that even though Mr. Omar Abdullah does not own the land but actually lives with his father in Jammu as he does in Srinagar. Yet in order to hype up a frenzy, his name has been added to the list & released by the government,” the NC stated.
The list was made by public ahead of District Development Council elections which are due to begin from November 28.
Senior National Conference leaders, however, termed this as an age-old trick of shoot and scoot policy of the BJP saying there was no wrongdoing about the house of senior Abdullah in Jammu.
Reacting to the development, senior BJP leader and union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused the Congress and the National Conference leaders of encroaching large tracts of government and forest land in and demanded a thorough probe into the Roshni scam.
“There was a conscious loot by powerful people of forest land and getting benefits under the Roshni Act, which has been declared unconstitutional by the high court,” Prasad told reporters in New Delhi.