250 jhuggis demolished

CHANDIGARH, April 28: In an operation lasting about four hours, 250-odd shanties were razed in Sector 25 here today. The jhuggis were illega...

CHANDIGARH, April 28: In an operation lasting about four hours, 250-odd shanties were razed in Sector 25 here today. The jhuggis were illegal and most of them had sprung up over the past few weeks, the authorities said.

According to the officials, the demolitions supervised by tehsildars D. S. Baloria and K. S. Gill, started at 11 a.m. in the morning and continued till 3 p.m. However, because of the non-availability of a bulldozer, there still remain some 400 jhuggis which the administration plans to remove tomorrow. Baloria said that many of these jhuggis were unoccupied and were empty.

Police Inspector Vijay Kumar, who accompanied the demolition squad, said that there was no resistance of any sort from the jhuggi dwellers. It was an operation with a difference. As there was no bulldozer — only the hopes of its arrival — about 150 labourers demolished the structures with lathis, iron rods, etc. “Without a bulldozer this is going to take us at least one week,”An official was heard complaining about the non-availability of the bull-dozer. A jhuggi-dweller, Ram Saran, said that he had been living there for a couple of years now. "Only during the rains did I go to live elsewhere. This was a nice place and saved me a good Rs 200 every month, which I shall now be paying as rent for sharing a room.”

EXCLUSIVE: EC brings in feature to check misuse of identity to seek voter list deletions

Political Pulse16 min ago

The Election Commission has launched a new 'e-sign' feature on its portal and app to prevent fraud. This comes after allegations of misuse of online voter deletion forms in Karnataka. The feature requires voters to verify their identity using their Aadhaar-linked phone numbers, reducing the possibility of fraud.

View all shorts

Live Blog