Srinagar, July 23( KNS): Residents of Flood Channel Bund Gogji Bagh Srinagar accused the Officials of Irrigation and Flood Control Department of carrying out illegal demolition of their houses.
In a statement to KNS, they said,"we the owners of residential houses located alongside the Flood Channel Bund at Gogji Bagh, Srinagar, have witnessed, on a selective basis, a repeat of the ill-conceived and unlawful action on the part of the officials of the Irrigation and Flood Control Department for demolition of temporary boundary walls, on the pretext of protection of water bodies."
They added, "Today morning, a team of officials of the I & FC Deptt, led by Assistant Executive Engineer and a JE all of a sudden, without any prior notice, started demolishing the walls of my house and eight other houses, on the flood channel bundside at Gogji Bagh, in violation of a stay order from the High Court of J&K, which we had obtained pursuant to the previous illegal action of the department, carried out in 2018."
When we enquired from the official of the department heading the demolition drive about the authority for the present action, She referred to the orders of the Hon’ble High Court in a PIL of 2014, Noor ul Haq, vs State of J&K, but, in response to our demand, refused to produce a copy of the order, they said
"We mentioned to her that our houses were not, as per our information, covered under the said PIL. In any case, the stay order obtained by us was a specific one obtained in February, 2018. We also mentioned that the houses in question have not in any way endangered the safety of the water bodies, and the temporary boundary walls built by us, in some cases, with the lawful permission of the erstwhile authorities of the department, were meant to not only protect our lives and property, but also to buttress the safety of the water channel." "These temporary structures can by no stretch of imagination, be taken to be encroachments on the water body, according to the letter and spirit of the law. We also mentioned that if this action was part of a general drive, (though unlawful), then why had actual encroachments, a couple of furlongs away, on the same bund, on either side, and elsewhere in the city, running into hundreds, been ignored." (KNS)