4,000 families living on Railway land in Haldwani set to get eviction notices

Over 4,000 families have been served eviction notices and given seven days to vacate the area, following an order to that effect issued by the Uttarakhand High Court. (Source: Twitter/@ShayarImran)

Railway officials said they have begun the process of demolishing the houses and other structures built on the 2.2 km strip of railway land. “Around 10 days ago, the High Court judgment came to remove all encroachments on the railway land in Haldwani. There are 4,365 encroachments and we will serve a notice tomorrow (Sunday) through local newspapers. The occupants will be given seven days’ time to shift; after that we will take action,” said Rajendra Singh, Railway PRO, Izzat Nagar.

During the hearing, the state government said it had no say on the said property belonging to the railways. The railways also said that no encroacher can produce any legal document to claim the said land. The court ruled in the favour of railways after hearing all the parties in a case which went on for almost a decade.

Following the court order, joint teams of railway and revenue officials conducted a drone survey of the encroached area on Thursday. They started demarcating the encroached areas amid protests from the local residents.

Earlier this week, thousands of residents took out a candlelight march to register their protest. They said the demolition drive will leave them homeless. Some of the families have been living in the unauthorised colonies for 40-50 years and several residents were born in the very houses which are now expected to be demolished in the next 10 days. According to local sources, the encroachments include around 20 mosques and 9 temples.

The Congress has opposed the eviction and accused the state government of not arguing the case properly in court and making excuses later.