74 houses demolished in eviction drive at Awaching
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, July 02 2018: Amidst tense confrontation between security forces and local people, 74 houses built at Awaching which is a part of Nongmaiching Reserved Forest were demolished today.

The houses allegedly built after encroaching into reserved forest area were demolished by a strong combined team of Forest Department, Imphal East district administration, police and paramilitary forces.

The Government officials and security forces moved into the area together with six excavators at around 7 am today.

But they were blocked by the alleged encroachers on the way to Kshetri Bengoon at Top Khongnangkhong.

As the road was blocked using boulders, timbers, bamboos and by burning tyres, the officials and the security forces made a detour towards Top Mayai Leikai and moved to Awaching.

There too, the officials were confronted by a large group of people.

After police somehow persuaded the local villagers, demolition of houses began.

Shortly after, some people whose houses have been demolished started raising an uproar contending that the whole exercise was discriminatory and two houses built on a mound a little down the foothill near the approach road were left untouched.

As police tried to control the mob who started vandalising articles of the two houses, they were attacked from another direction using stones and catapults.

The security forces responded by firing tear gas shells and the demolition exercise went on.

One police personnel was hit by a catapult projectile and he was taken to a hospital.

Altogether 74 houses including one primary school were demolished during the exercise.

One Masjid was left unharmed as the villagers volunteered to demolish the Masjid themselves.

Meanwhile, the group of people who blocked road at Top Khongnangkhong attacked a police outpost opened there which compelled police to fire several rounds of tear gas shells.

As the agitating mass started gaining upper hand, security reinforcements were called and they drove away the agitators using bullet proof vehicles.

Chief Conservator of Forest/Territorial-I S Dhananjoy said that Nongmaiching was declared as a reserved forest under the Indian Forest Act in January 1990 .

Before it was declared as reserved forest area, the Assistant Settlement Officer concerned issued a notification inviting claims and objections.

After all the complaints and objections were addressed/disposed, Nongmaiching was declared as a reserved forest and it was published in the State gazette, Dhananjoy said.

The Central Forest Division issued show case notice and other relevant notifications to the encroachers from time to time since 2003.Even though the department has been working to evict the encroachers since 2003, eviction notice was issued only in March this year.

As the encroachers refused to pay any heed to repeated notices, the department demolished the illegal structures with the help of district administration, police and paramilitary forces, Dhananjoy said.

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