Squatters back at Kasturchand Park, citizen has proof

NAGPUR: Even as Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court restricted all activities at Kasturchand Park, migrants have once again encroached on Chhatri, popularly referred as Band Stand, located right in the middle of the iconic ground.

It was brought to fore by vigilant citizen Dr Ranjana Pardhi, former Child Welfare Committee (CWC) chairperson, who was shocked to see the state of historic place.

She clicked many photographs and submitted to TOI highlighting on how the Grade-I heritage structure is lying in utter state of neglect, thanks to the apathy of authorities, including collector's office, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and city police.

She tried to call on senior officers of the Sadar Police Station, but none of them was in the range. Later, she called on their landline, but it was continuously engaged. She also tried contacting police commissioner K Venkatesh, who asked her to contact on control room. She then tried control room on 100 a couple of times, but in vain.

"This is not happening for the first time. They (cops) are always unavailable. I lodged many complaints at various other police stations for many such cases. However, they do nothing. They all seem to be in hand in glove and don't want to take action against anyone. Nobody cares for judiciary's directives or respect its orders it seems," she told TOI.

Pardhi, who is working with Daga Hospital, was fed up with the menace of child beggars at traffic signals near the place. "I was shocked to see small kids begging on the streets without any clothes and high baring temperature and rains. They are all 'out-of-the-school' children, but shockingly, they're not visible to the civic body."

She said all these migrants defecate in the drainage by opening its lid and keep it open for days together. "I will be not be surprised if anyone falls in that manhole, just like what happened during Mumbai rains where one of the doctors was found dead after falling in the drainage. Due to them, you can't walk on the footpaths. They make the entire area dirty," Pardhi said.

The pictures clicked by Pardhi clearly reveal that the migrants have completely occupied the entire structure in the middle of the ground and even do all kinds of activities like cooking, thus possessing grave threats to the Grade-I heritage structure.

"They even make a temporary swing by tying ropes with the Chhatri pillars. They're accompanied by stray dogs who loiter there and make the entire premises dirty. You can't stay there for over a minute due to the foul smell. For me, it's all shocking and I thought of raising the voice through media," she told TOI.

The court had taken a suo motu cognisance of media reports alleging gross misuse of the historic park due to negligence of the district administration, who often rent it out for commercial activities and treated the issue as PIL, while appointing Shreerang Bhandarkar as amicus curiae.