Ex- J&K chief minister Mehbooba vacates Gupkar residence, moves to sister’s home

SRINAGAR:  Nearly a month after being served an eviction notice by authorities, PDP chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday vacated her Fairview residence at highly-secured Gupkar Road in Srinagar and moved to her sister’s residence in the Srinagar outskirts.

PDP spokesperson Najam-Us-Saqib said that Mehbooba vacated her Gupkar residence on Monday. The Estates Department had sent a notice to the PDP chief on October 15 asking her to vacate the “Fair View Guest House” at Gupkar by or before November 15.

Saqib said Mehbooba took all her belongings from the Gupkar residence and possession of the Fair View has been handed over to the government. The PDP chief has moved to her sister’s residence at Khimber area in the outskirts of Srinagar. The Estates Department while serving an eviction notice to Mehbooba had offered her a government quarter at Tulsi Bagh area of uptown Srinagar. However, she had rejected the option and instead preferred to move to her sister’s residence, where some repairs and refurbishments were carried out before her shifting there.

Fairview was the official residence of Mehbooba and her late father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed when they were chief ministers of erstwhile J&K state. In the erstwhile J&K state, a former CM was entitled to lifelong official accommodation. However, the law that permitted the former CM to occupy official residences for life was amended by the centre in 2020, a year after scrapping J&K’s special status and bifurcating J&K state into two UTs.

Former CMs Omar Abdullah and Ghulam Nabi Azad vacated their official residences in 2020. The Fairview was used as an official guest house and was known as Fairview Guest House till 1989. However, after the outbreak of militancy, it was taken over by BSF and it was turned into a detention centre named Papa-II.