Thaindian News

Ghaziabad, Sep 6 (IANS) While taking stock of previous day’s violence in this Uttar Pradesh city in which about two dozen people including three policemen were injured, senior government officials Sunday said that they would examine how illegal colonies on such a large scale came up here.
The divisional commissioner of Meerut, while addressing a meeting of senior officials here at Ghaziabad, said circumstances under which illegal constructions had come up are being examined by the government.

The inspector general of police, who also attended the meeting, said police had to be more alert and criminal intelligence had to be sensitized to stop the crime before its occurrence.

“The government is examining how such huge colonization came up on public land. Apparently only land grabbers cannot be held solely responsible for illegal colonization. Officials of the departments on whose land the colonization came up seem to be involved,” Meerut Divisional Commissioner Shrawan Kumar Sharma said.

About two dozen people, including three policemen, were injured and many vehicles set ablaze and damaged here Saturday when people protesting the government’s move to evict them from an unauthorised colony turned violent.

Police used teargas and fired in the air to disperse the mob after a large number of people gathered and blocked the Ghaziabad-Greater Noida Expressway on National Highway (NH) 24, officials said.

Earlier, on the instructions of the cabinet secretary, the Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad administration launched a drive to raze illegal constructions along the Hindon river.

According to officials, no construction is allowed within 400 metres of the main stream of the river but land grabbers had sold plots to people who had built houses without any approval from the authorities.

These illegal structures had created hindrances in the construction of the expressway, so the joint team of irrigation department and district administration had launched the demolition drive, officials said.