On Friday (December 29), Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Pushkar Singh Dhami said that his government has freed 5000 acres of land encroached through Land Jihad.
“For the betterment of the Devbhoomi, we had to take some challenging and tough decisions with the blessings of Bhagwan Ram. We have never stepped back from taking tough decisions. One of which was removing encroachments from government lands. We were successful in freeing more than 5000 acres of land by getting rid of land jihad and the drive shall continue till all illegal and forceful possessions are removed,” Dhami remarked while attending a ‘Ram Katha’ in Delhi’s IP Extension.
हमने देवभूमि के अंदर कई चुनौतीपूर्ण और कठिन निर्णय लिए हैं। लैंड जिहाद के रूप में अतिक्रमित की गई 5000 एकड़ से भी अधिक भूमि मुक्त करवाई गई है। pic.twitter.com/1xxB5TIdi2
— Pushkar Singh Dhami (@pushkardhami) December 29, 2023
After several complaints of encroachment on government land, CM Dhami directed the state police and forest department to identify all such illegal constructions.
The state government identified a total of 3,793 such areas until May 2023, TOI reported citing data provided by the state government. The Nainital district had the highest number of encroachments, with around 1,433, followed by Haridwar district, which had 1,149. Other districts with a large number of illegal structures are Tehri (209), Almora (192), and Champawat (97). The great majority of these encroachments were on forest land.
Since the start of an anti-encroachment campaign earlier this year, the state has demolished around 500 mazars and roughly 50 temples.
In May this year, it was reported that the state authorities had demolished over 330 Mazars in 90 days. Earlier in March 2023, the Uttarakhand government rolled bulldozers over illegal mazars which were built by encroachment on the reserved forest land. The action took place after Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami directed the state authorities to clear forest land of encroachment. The government authorities demolished 26 mazars that were illegally constructed on the government’s forest land. The authorities conducted a survey and identified around 1400 religious structures built illegally on government land.
