After Mathura, cops clear all government land

Taking lesson from a Mathura park where illegal occupants had stored arms and ammunition, leading to violence and deaths in of Jawahar Bagh, the Ghaziabad police on Sunday launched a massive drive against illegal occupants living on government land in the city.

A senior police official said that the police had launched an intensive checking drive in all the slums. The police has got intelligence inputs about presence of criminals and suspects in these slums. Occupants of the slums are often found involved in sale of liquor and drugs in the locality.

“Following the orders of the senior superintendent of police, we have launched a drive to check activity of illegal occupants in the slums. The enforcement wing of the civic agencies were also roped in to demolished any ‘puckka’ constructions done by these occupants on government land,” said Salman Taj Patil, SP, City of Ghaziabad.

“It is a regular drive that has been organised to check illegal activities in the slum areas at regular intervals. These slums are also safe hideouts for many bad characters of other districts,” he added.

On Wednesday, the Indirapuram police had recovered the body of a 22-year-old youth, buried in a slum in the Vaishali area. He had been murdered and buried by his relatives. The police said that as part of the drive cops are also maintaining the data of occupants of these slums and the nature of work they are doing.

“The drive was initiated from slums in Vaishali, Kaushambi and Indirapuram areas. All police stations in the district have been ordered to conduct a similar drive and update the status report to my office at the earliest,” he added.

However, an official with Local Intelligence Unit said that after the Mathura incident, they had been ordered to prepare fresh report of illegal occupants living on government land.

“There is a significant rise in number of slums in the city. It will create law and order issues during demolition drives. We have also alerted the Ghaziabad Development Authority about the fresh report and demanded immediate action on the matter,” said the Local Intelligence Unit official.