Gangster Act to protect water body land from mafia

New Delhi: Meerut zone commissioner Prabhat Kumar has directed the Ghaziabad administration to book those who grabbed land where water bodies existed under provisions of the Gangster Act.

District magistrate Ministhy S. said that the commissioner has ordered to take stringent action against land mafia as the Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal (NGT) have strictly ordered to free the ponds from the clutches of land mafia.

“They (encroachers) will be sent to jail under the Gangster Act, for this survey will be launched by different government departments,” said the district magistrate.

The ponds which were registered in land records of Nagar Nigam and Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) will be traced. It will be the liability of the department concerned to make free their lands and dig ponds on those places. In case the civic bodies fail to do so they have to excavate the ponds on alternative places, the DM said.

Houses constructed on illegally sold land within last few months or years will be bulldozed by issuing prior notices to residents and the persons who have sold the land in connivance with government officials will be put to task, she said.

The decision was taken in the meeting chaired by commissioner Kumar in the collectorate in Meerut.