Noida: The air force on Wednesday razed 11 illegal houses set up on a 40-acre plot owned by it in Nagla-Nagli village along the Noida expressway. The land is part of the 482-acre plot that was given to the
IAF by the ministry of defence in 1950 for a bombing range. The drive will continue on Thursday and 24 more houses set up on another 40-acre land will be cleared, officials said.
In July this year, the Allahabad high court had directed that the land be freed of encroachers and had ordered criminal proceedings against the accused.
According to Group Captain
A K Srivastava, who led the anti-encroachment drive, the squatters were given show cause notice on November 8. "Later they were served eviction notice on December 1. We took all the due procedures following the court order to demolish the structures and clear the government land from encroachers," he said.
In the morning, IAF officers, accompanied by officials of local police and district administration, arrived on the spot and started razing the structures. Though some encroachers too arrived, they did not offer any resistance due to heavy deployment of forces. The earth-movers demolished all temporary structures, walls of the houses and cleared the debris.
Meanwhile, five encroachers had got a stay order from the high court against eviction. Srivastava said the team would not touch those houses that have got stay orders though the drive would continue on Thursday.
Kunal, sub-divisional officer, defence estates office,
Delhi Cantt, said the
defence ministry would ensure that the land is free from encroachers. In future, GPS fencing would be done to ensure that no further encroachment takes place, officials said.
Anjani Kumar Singh, SDM Sadar, was also present during the drive.
The IAF had set up a bombing range in the area after the land acquisition in 1950. However, the base camp vanished during a flood in 1976. The flood also erased the demarcation of land in the area coming in the jurisdiction of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The squatters took advantage of this situation and started occupying the land since then. It is believed that some land grabbers have also made 'documents' in support of their claims.
On July 6 this year, the Allahabad high court acknowledged that the land belongs to the ministry of defence and asked the defence authorities and district officials to get back possession of the areas that had been illegally occupied. The plots are spread across two villages - Nangla-Nangli - of Gautam Budh Nagar, which was in Bulandshahr district at the time of acquisition. The court had earlier directed a high-level committee, comprising defence and district administration officials, to ensure immediate correction of land records.
