Trees killed with acid for better hoarding visibility

Nagpur: In a tragic incident, eight recently-planted trees in the city were mercilessly burnt for better visibility of an advertisement hoarding.
In August this year, environment activist Shrikant Deshpande had planted the trees along the road between Bhole Petrol Pump square and Variety Square. “I had planted some fully-grown trees and some medium-sized trees to increase the green cover in the area. Overall, I had planted 18 trees,” said Deshpande.
On Tuesday, he was shocked to see eight trees completely burnt, in all probability by deliberately using harmful chemical or acid. “The chemical was so strong that all the trees got completely damaged. None survived,” he said.
According to him, the trees were deliberately killed for better visibility of an advertisement hoarding. “This is happening repeatedly in the city. The hoarding owners are finding ways to rampantly destroy trees and no action is being taken against them,” said Deshpande. He added that earlier too trees at same location were cut for the same reason.
TOI has also been highlighting how city is losing its green cover for such trivial reasons. A few days back, old trees were chopped off at Laxmi Bhuvan Square as they were supposedly obstructing view of a newly constructed building.