Sher Shah Suri’s introduced land revenue system needs improvisation to control crime cases
Pak Chronicle Report
Rawalakot/AJK
Old, decaying, flawed and faulty land revenue system in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) continues to be a major issue in the territory for the inhabitants as besides generating so many other problems it has also been the main reason behind rise in homicide cases over here in the past two decades.
The old land revenue system is getting faultier with the passage of time and causing a lot of issues for the inhabitants and resulting in rise of killing or attempt of killing cases in the territory over land disputes.
The feudal system does not have any roots over here but small land holdings still exist and they are getting smaller due to continuous process of division generation after generation.
Compared with four provinces of Pakistan the AJK has lower crime rate. However, it has been witnessing higher crime rate especially that of homicides cases during past two decades.
The jail records testifies that homicides cases are on the rise in the territory and it has witnessed 70 to 80 percent spike in two decades and majority of these were result of land disputes.
This is pertinent to mention here that the Land Administration System (LAS) in AJK has its foundation on the traditional and primitive system of land registers and maps which were introduced around four centuries ago by Sub-Continent ruler Sher Shah Suri and later other rulers followed his footprints in this connection.
The current regime headed by Raja Farooq Haider and other rulers of the AJK never attempted to fix this issue and thus they have been failing to control heinous crimes.
Grade-5 employees of revenue department, Patwaris continue to play important role in this connection and they are heavily burdened with number of responsibilities. They are supposed to generate revenue for number of accounts. They are supposed to generate funds to entertain visits of dignitaries like the AJK president and the PM besides generating funds to meet expenses of visits of other high government functionaries.
At the same time these patwaris are paid negligible salaries and a patwari who has served the department for 20 years would be paid around Rs30,000 per month. Being paid so little and being burden with gigantic responsibilities pave way for corruption. As a result of which dreary land revenue system becomes drearier and it becomes flashpoint for committing violence amongst some masses.
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