From one small stall to big ‘criminal den’

CHANDIGARH: Encroachment is becoming a matter of concern for the residents of Manimajra’s Modern Housing Complex, for they claim it to be one of the reasons why the area’s crime rate has jumped. Their complaints suggest that the vendors who encroached upon government land created dens for anti-social elements.

During a visit to the area recently, The Times of India team found that two confectioners, four grocers, and three chemists had encroached upon the market corridors in front of their shops. The vendors started sitting along the market’s boundary more than a decade ago. The encroachment increased day by day, but there was hardly any check. “The anti-enforcement teams rarely stepped into Manimajra,” a resident complained to TOI. A few women from the neighbourhood said the miscreants turned aggressive if people objected to their comments and behaviour.

Prem Bhardwaj of the Modern Housing Complex resident welfare association (RWA) said: “A few years ago, one of the vegetable vendors pitched a stall opposite our market and started going to the park to ease himself, so the RWA locked the park. This vendor then moved outside the market boundary and, at present, his stall is the biggest in the illegal market. Had the civic authorities acted long ago when he started grabbing the government land, the space would have been free of encroachment. To the left of the railway crossing, towards Modern Housing Complex, lies a makeshift dhaba where drivers stop for food and cause traffic chaos.”

Navin Vig, another resident of Modern Housing Complex, said he had brought all this encroachment to the notice of Manimajra’s station house officer (SHO). He said: “Illegal venders have encroached upon the entire footpath from Gates 3 & 4 to the main market of the complex. This has created a traffic bottleneck and the vendor litter the road with leftovers and other waste.”

Modern Housing Complex resident Y P Gupta said that street vendors had encroached upon about 15 feet of footpath along a curve near Category-3 houses and turned the corner into a place notorious for accidents. Another point where accidents are common is near along with roadside attached to the boundary wall of Catogary-3 houses, where more illegal vendors sit. They have created a nexus with bad elements, who sit around that spot.

P N Sharma, a senior citizen from the complex, told TOI: “Because of unwanted vendors and other kinds of encroachment around shops, pedestrians like me are at great risk in the market.” Area SHO Ranjit Singh has assured the residents that he will get the antecedents of the vendors verified to control encroachment in the area. In a meeting with the residents a few days ago, he also promised take up the issue with the department concerned.

Two drug addicts sitting on a wall at Manimajra’s Modern Housing Complex two days ago threw stones at resident R N Uppal when he objected and told them to leave. RWA general secretary S A Qureshi told police that drug addicts and anti-social elements assembled in the disused garages of the area. “The miscreants sit there all day and night, and cases of eve-teasing and snatching have increased in that area,” the resident said.