Jammu, January 16: The Gujjar-Bakerwal Schedule Tribe today demanded the adaptation of a national model to develop “forest villages” for tribal and nomadic groups of Jammu and Kashmir on the prototype of other Indian states and extension of the National Conservation Act, 1980 to the state for the constitutional rehabilitation of their tribe in the areas belonging to them since centuries.
In an appeal to State Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the ST communities sought intervention of dignitaries for extension of legal provision in the state for J and K tribes and pleaded vigorously for constitutional safeguards to rehabilitate in such forest villages lakhs of nomadic and semi-nomadic Gujjar-Bakerwal population who are land-less, shelter-less and living below the poverty line in hilly and border areas of the Jammu and Kashmir.
The appeal was made through the Tribal Research and Cultural Foundation, a Frontal organization of Gujjars.
–Agencies