Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Supreme Court’s hint at reining in the use of bulldozer to demolish the buildings of criminals across the country may put a curb on such an action in the state. The apex court recently gave such an indication on a petition filed by the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. After Uttar Pradesh, it is Madhya Pradesh where most of the bulldozer actions took place.
After the stone-pelting incident in Chhatarpur, when the government bulldozed the house of a Congress leader Shahjad Ali, the opposition and the people of the minority community have taken an aggressive stance against the government. Since the court has taken an exception to demolition of houses, now the opposition may openly come against the bulldozer action.
During the tenure of Shivraj Singh Chouhan as chief minister – now a Union Minister – the bulldozer action on the pattern of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had taken place in MP in 2020. After Mohan Yadav took over as Chief Minister last year, the bulldozer action is continuing. The government has launched two types of bulldozer action: one, it demolished the houses of criminals, especially those who were involved in rapes; second, it razed some houses to free government land from land shirks.
According to government statistics, 12, 460 illegal constructions were flattened from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2022. In this way, 21, 502 acres were recovered from land shirks.
Buildings declared illegal, demolished
The houses of criminals are demolished after declaring those edifices illegal. There are no laws to raze the houses of criminals. So, the civic bodies declare the buildings illegal and then demolish them. The authorities also call those buildings as encroachments on government land, and, with the help the police, they raze the structures.
