Syedpora hotel row: Altaf Bukhari breaks silence, promises ‘proof’

Srinagar, Oct 3: Apni Party founder-president Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari has vowed to release documentary proof linking the contractor of an allegedly unauthorised hotel at Syedpora Harwan in Srinagar to the National Conference top brass, even as the NC dismissed his charges and claimed the man at the centre of the controversy belongs to Bukhari’s own party.
The row erupted after Advisor to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Nasir Aslam Wani, claimed that the man identified only as Chawla — accused of raising the hotel — has been traced to his nest in Altaf Bukhari’s own Apni Party. Wani, in an interview, rejected Altaf Bukhari’s allegations, insisting the NC government has neither allotted any land to any Chawla nor granted any building permission for the hotel.
According to Wani, Chawla acquired 15 separate parcels totalling 15 kanals through separate deeds and began construction without permission from the LCMA — work that “we have got immediately stopped by the authorities”. He alleged that both the land acquisition and the illegal construction were facilitated by people associated with Bukhari’s party, and that the contractor too belongs to the Apni Party.
Altaf Bukhari hit back swiftly, accusing the Advisor of just attempting to mislead the people about the identity and political affiliation of those involved.
According to the Apni Party president, 30 kanals of land have been transferred through illegal registration to a Mumbai-based businessman, who is raising a multi-storey hotel in violation of several laws.
He explained that there are two people of the same name in Syedpora Harwan — one associated with the Apni Party and until recently an elected DDC member from Srinagar, with no link to the Mumbai businessman; the other, he claimed, closely linked to NC and the CM and his family and engaged as the contractor for the hotel.
Apni Party President Altaf Bukhari vowed to soon release documentary proof connecting the contractor to the Mumbai businessman on one side and to the NC top brass on the other.
Clarifying his charge, Altaf Bukhari said he never claimed the government allotted the land to the businessman. His allegation, rather, is that the businessman bought proprietary parcels in blatant violation of the domicile law now in force in J&K, that registration was carried out by officers of the NC government, and that a parcel of state land was annexed along with them with the connivance and facilitation of the current dispensation.
Construction, he said, continued in full swing with the government’s full knowledge until he made the issue public, and was halted only after that — a claim that directly contradicts Wani’s assertion that the work was stopped immediately. (KNS)