Jammu & Kashmir: Residents, activists oppose Army firing range in meadow

Budgam: The Jammu and Kashmir government is caught in a cleft stick over the proposal to lease out a scenic meadow, Bajpathri, in Yusmarg health resort of central Kashmir, to the Indian Army for artillery drills. The residents of South Kashmir’s Budgam district, civil society activists and environmentalists have threatened to launch a massive agitation if the state government goes ahead with the proposal of leasing out the land to the Army. [caption id=“attachment_2554344” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Image courtesy: Reuters[/caption] “If we don’t stop it, this will become another Tosa Maidan,” Asim Assadi, Convenor of the ‘Save Yusmarg Movement’, a civil society group opposing the move, told Firstpost in Budgam. Assadi was referring to 69 sq km of Tosa Maidan meadows, in the same district, which were used for 50 years by the Army and Air Force for training purposes and heavy artillery drills. The residents had been protesting against the firing range, due to which 63 people died and 150 were disabled permanently from the littered shells, according to government data. Later, the Omar Abdullah government did not renew the lease for the Army with the promise that it would be provided with another location. The Jammu and Kashmir government then had promised to allot land for three firing ranges, two in Jammu and one in Ladakh. Omar, the former chief minister, had set up a panel headed by the Chief Secretary Iqbal Khandey to recommend relocation of the Army’s firing range in Tosa Maidan. The panel suggested two sites to the Army, but the latter said they were not ready to accept these sites, “due to lack of connectivity.” Bajpathri is a high-altitude bowl-shaped valley, 42 kilometers from Srinagar, in central Kashmir’s Budgam district. “It is an upcoming tourist destination, and there has been a huge response to the place this year. More than twenty thousand people have visited this year from all over India. Yusmarg (where Bajpathri is located) will be having a golf course very soon that will increase the tourist footfall,” Farooq Shah, Commissioner Secretary to Tourism, Jammu and Kashmir government, told Firstpost.