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Army bulldozers raze to ground 35 houses
Army men armed with weapons and four bulldozers razed to the ground 35 pucca constructions in Naya Purwa, Nakauli area, on Saturday night. The act which has forced more than 100 men, women and children to remain without a roof in this inclement weather.
Army men armed with weapons and four bulldozers razed to the ground 35 pucca constructions in Naya Purwa, Nakauli area, on Saturday night. The act which has forced more than 100 men, women and children to remain without a roof in this inclement weather.
Residents, who are still dazed, alleged that armymen behaved with them as if they were not human beings. Most of the men in uniform with weapons even beat us up and took all of us in the nearby jungle where we were forced to sit on the ground till the bulldozers did not accomplish their task.
The residents alleged that there was no prior notice or warning. About a thousand of them came like a swarm of bees, entered our households while most of us were asleep, held us by hand and forced us out of our dwellings constructed with sweat and blood, said Shivakant who too was injured in the assault. Those who tried to resist were beaten black and blue, he said.
Even women were not spared, said Meera who bears the tell-tale signs of the atrocity which the jawans wreaked on her on Saturday night. Not only this people were not even allowed to retrieve their belongings, she said.
Former MLA Anugrah Narain Singh and Shiva Kant Misra of Hindu Jagran Manch refused to accept the army version that the land on which the houses were built belonged to the army.
According to them the then Sub Area Commander in 1984 had got a boundary wall constructed demarcating the army property from civilian property. But even this boundary was dismantled by the army which is now claiming the land on which the houses had been built, they said.
Angered over the army action the people of the area blocked movement of vehicles on Stanley Road on Sunday for quite some time. However, they relented and agreed for a meeting with the DM following intervention of army officers and the police. The talks were reportedly going on till the time of going to the Press.
Meanwhile , Defence PRO, Wing Commander SM Sharma said, the land in question on which people had built houses belonged to defence department. The army can never displace innocent persons. The residents, according to him, had been served with notices earlier but they were not responding. They had to be evacuated from the area because of security reasons.
The Defence PRO said that the army has a training centre in the area and any body living in the vicinity can get to know what was going on inside. The wall, he said, had been constructed to stop them from encroaching further on defence land. He did not rule out the possibility of some persons getting injured during evacuation process.
On the issue of the time chosen by the defence personnel to clear the area, the Defence PRO said it was basically done to ward off politicians who capitalise on such issues.
