How Can Someone Just Trespass Your House And Ransack it: Bhasin

Three weeks ago, Anuradha Bhasin had said they heard of similar eviction rumours with respect to the government accommodation housing their Kashmir Times office in Srinagar’s Press Enclave.

Srinagar: Well known journalist and Editor-in chief of the daily Kashmir Times Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal on Monday accused a political family of forcefully and illegally occupying her government flat allotted to her late father Ved Bhasin at Wazarat Road Jammu .

Bhasin took to her social media page on Facebook to detail her ordeal saying that residence was ransacked when she was away.

Talking to Kashmir Observer, Bhasin said the government flat belonged to her family for the last 50 years.

“I have been an authorised allottee of the government flat since 1999-2000. Before me, the flat was allotted to my father in 1969. Both allotments were done under the journalist category,” she said.

Bhasin said she got to know from her sources earlier that the Estates Department has canceled her allotment but nobody was confirming it.

“I’ve receive no show-cause or allotment cancellation notice till date”, she said.

Bhasin said she even sent a legal notice to the Estates Department to know the grounds on which her allotment was being cancelled, if that was the case, through speed-post. However, there is no response till date.

“How can someone just trespass your house and ransack everything,” Bhasin said. “These people were led by Imran Ganai, who’s a brother of ex-MLC Shehnaz Ganai. He was sitting on my bed when I arrived there.”

“My belongings were dumped in one-room and even breakable items were thrown around. We were shoved and pushed and had to fight back in self-defence,” she added.

Kashmir Observer tried to reach Shehnaz Ganai and her brother for their comments on the story. But the repeated attempts yielded no response.

Bhasin, meanwhile, said she is traumatised after the housebreak incident and that police is reluctant to lodge an FIR for “trespassing and theft”.

“Even though the SHO himself saw how my belongings were ransacked and my valuables are missing, there is no response about my complaint,” she said.

However, Nayat Ali, SHO Pir Mitha police station, told Kashmir Observer that it was a formal order from the Estates Department which was executed by the magistrate himself.

“Estates Department has allotted the flat to another party and both have occupied it now. The matter is in court now,” Ali said.

Earlier, in a Facebook post, Bhasin said, they heard of similar eviction rumours with respect to the government accommodation housing their Kashmir Times office in Srinagar’s Press Enclave.

“No official cancellation notice has been served to us there also, despite our staffers approaching the Estates Department,” she said.