The Uttarakhand Government is waging a war against unlawfully erected religious structures on public properties. The Government has started an anti-encroachment drive, wherein it demolished 200 mazars and 27 temples that were constructed on government land till May 7. Furthermore, the officials have said that about 56 hectares of forest land have been freed.
Parag Madhukar Dhakate, Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF) and Special Secretary to the Chief Minister, stated, “The work to identify encroachments on forest land is on. So far, we have removed 227 illegally built religious structures, including 200 tombs (mazars) and 27 temples from forest land in the state”. He added, “There are various kinds of encroachments on forest land, such as hutments, resorts, houses etc”.
The Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Haridwar, Puran Singh Rana, said the action is taken constitutionally on the orders of the Supreme Court and the High Court. He said that the law and order situation is normal, and nobody will be permitted to take the law into their hands.
Rana described that the actions are fair and just. Irrespective of the community, the administration will demolish illegal encroachments and structures in accordance with the law.
Earlier, the Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami told authorities to take strict action on illegal religious encroachments while expressing concerns over “demographic changes” in the state. CM Dhami said that the state of Uttarakhand would not permit “land jihad” and that the administration had “identified around 1,000 places where mazars (tombs) and other structures have been illegally built,” on April 10.
He added, “When the same were dug, no remains were found there…We are not against anyone, but we won’t allow illegal encroachments, we won’t allow land jihad to proceed here”. After expressing his concern over “imbalances” in the state’s demography, he added, “We will also run a special campaign in the state to check this.”
The move by the state government faced lots of criticism, especially from the opposition Congress. The state Congress vice president, Mathura Dutt Joshi, said, “People in the state want jobs and an end to corruption. Instead of doing that, the BJP government is removing mazars from forest land to divert the attention of the people”.
In response to that, Manveer Singh Chauhan, state BJP in-charge, said, “No one should have any objection if the state government is removing illegal encroachments from the forest land in the state”. He added, “The government is removing religious encroachments of all kinds and not targeting any one particular community”.
Chauhan further said these actions are taken according to the Chief Minister’s instructions to remove encroachments. While taking a dig at Congress, Chauhan said, “Congress has a habit of unnecessarily politicising issues. They are indulging in their age-old appeasement politics on this issue, too”.
