Nuh: Medical stores among buildings demolished in Nuh drive | India News – Times of India

GURGAON: At least 46 concrete structures, among them houses and business establishments like pharmacies and mobile repair stores, and 39 shanties were brought down in Nuh on Saturday afternoon, a day after state home minister Anil Vij said bulldozers are part of the “ilaaj (treatment)” as the government probes communal violence that began in the district on July 31 and spread to Gurgaon and other parts of south Haryana.

Saturday was the third day of demolitions, which began on Thursday afternoon with 150 shanties at a slum housing migrant families for years being razed in Tauru. On Friday, five houses were torn down in Nalhar.
The official reason cited for all the demolitions is encroachment of government land, but officials in Nuh maintained they had inputs about the involvement of the owners of these properties in rioting on July 31. The Tauru slum dwellers, mostly ragpickers left homeless after the demolitions, had on Friday denied their involvement in the riots.

Late on Saturday evening, the Haryana government extended the suspension of mobile and dongle internetm and bulk SMS till August 8, with additional chief secretary (home) TVSN Prasad’s order saying the situation in Nuh remains “critical and tense”.
Most of the demolitions between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning happened at Nalhar too, one of the other areas that saw the main violence on July 31. So far, police have registered 56 FIRs related to the riots in Nuh and arrested 145 suspects in the district.
SDM Ashwani Kumar said on Saturday there was no “pick and choose” and the administration was acting against encroachments following reports that some of the owners were involved in the communal violence of July 31.
“After receiving proper inputs from different agencies, we demolished 45 concrete and 15 temporary structures near Shaheed Hassan Khan Mewati Government Hospital in Nalhar under the supervision of district town and country planning officer. Police teams probing the violence have identified that some of the medical store owners from the area were involved in the stone-pelting,” Kumar said. Twenty-five structures, one of them concrete, were also razed in Tehsola village of Tauru subdivision, about 19km away.

Deputy commissioner Dhirendra Khadgata, who took charge from Prashant Panwar on Saturday, said the illegal structures — about six to eight of them chemist shops, and several mobile recharge, bike repair and fruit juice shops — had come up on a 2.5-acre forest department land in front of Nalhar Medical College over the past year.
The shanties that were torn down were also located in the area around the medical college — near Nalhar temple, Sahara Hotel, Adbar Chowk, Nalhar Road and Tiranga Chowk and in Pingawan, Bisru, Biwa, Nangal Mubarikpur, Palra Shahpuri and Agon villages.
“People who are involved in anti-social activities are being closely monitored by the district administration. At present, the situation in the district is normal and under control, so people should not panic. But those involved in disturbing peace and harmony will not be spared under any circumstances,” Khadgata said.
Ishtiyaq Ahmed, who owns a shanty near the medical college, said most of them had been living in the area for nearly five years. “We are very poor. All of a sudden, the administration decided to raze our huts. Where will we go now?” he asked.

Ahmed said most of his neighbours had come either from nearby villagers or as far as West Bengal and Assam in search of employment. A few others said they were being targeted for long, sometimes labelled as illegal Bangladeshis immigrants and at other times as encroachers, just because of their religion. “I am not involved in any crime. I was just trying to make a living by selling fruit juice in front of this hospital. First came the violence, which shut down my business, and now the crackdown has taken away my very means to earn,” Nafeez Mohammad, who rummaged through a pile that was once a juice shop, said.
District town planner Vinesh Kumar, however, said notices had been served to the residents earlier to vacate the land. “These structures are on government land. We have served notices on them several times to vacate the land. On Saturday, the administration’s team also gave them time to vacate the houses and stores when the curfew was relaxed between 12pm and 3pm.”

SP Narendra Singh Bijarniya said eight teams were continuously conducting raids to arrest the rioters. “We are also conducting flag marches in villages to ensure peace. Rioters will not be spared. We will only arrest those involved in the violence,” he said.