Bordered by greed: J&K cop, siblings nearly deported over land grab plot
SRINAGAR: J&K police head constable Iftkhar Ali believes it was a land dispute that nearly tore apart his life, his family, and his identity as an Indian citizen. A distant relative, he claims, manipulated authorities to serve deportation notices to him and eight of his siblings — all in an alleged bid to seize their ancestral property of 17 acres in J&K Poonch district.
'I think a revenue official, who is our distant relative, influenced the authorities and they sent us notices without confirmation. He wanted to grab my land. It should be investigated,' Ali said Thursday. 'How can a conspiracy driven by greed for land rob me of my children, my country, and put us to such agony?'
The 45-year-old head constable posted at the Vaishno Devi shrine's Katra base camp was on official duty in Jammu on April 26 when he was handed a deportation order by local police. The notice, issued by the Poonch DC, directed him and his siblings — three brothers and five sisters, all between 45 and 65 — to leave India by April 29 and cross into Pakistan.
'The notice was in my hand and suddenly, from a police officer I became a person without a country,' Ali said.
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The orders followed the Centre's directive to identify and deport Pakistani nationals in the wake of the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam. Somehow, despite his govt job and decades of residency, Ali's name was included.
His department intervened, sparing him from immediate deportation and keeping him at Gandhi Nagar police station in Jammu. His siblings, however, were put on the road to the Attari border in Punjab. At home, his wife Shahnaz Kousar and their three children — 12-year-old Nawaish, 9-year-old Ayaan, and 7-year-old Ziyaan — were left in anguish.
'I cannot describe how I have spent the past seven days. I was living a hell,' Ali said. 'When a man dies, he is buried in a grave. Here I am alive and I was thinking I couldn't be with my children ever.'
Ali's roots in India run deep. His father Faqir Din was a hereditary state subject and an Indian citizen under the 1955 Citizenship Act. During the 1965 war, Din and his family were forced into PoK when their village Salwah came under Pakistani control. There, six more children, including Iftkhar, were born. The family returned to J&K in the 1980s and were officially granted state subject status in 1997.
On April 29, J&K high court stayed the deportation. 'Outside the police station in Poonch on Thursday evening, I felt back in life,' Ali said. 'I am happy now, but will the trauma of this week live with us for long?'
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