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| Two dozen JDA employees, cops injured in attack by land encroachers | | 600 kanals JDA land evicted, Police fired teargas shells | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, June 12: After the first unsuccessful bid to remove encroachments at Sidhra on the city outskirts, JDA's anti-encroachment squad and nearly 200 armed cops of police and CRPF today chased away stone-pelting encroachers following day-long ding-dong battles with them.
The encroachments, in the form of plinths, had stealithly come up on over 600 kanals of JDA land near the Golf Course at Sidhra, according to director land management (JDA) Babu Ram.
Police fired dozens of teargas shells to chase away the encroachers, all belonging to Gujjar community. Gujjars stoned the cops. In the clashes, at least two dozen JDA (Jammu Development Authority) employees, including khilafwarzi Inspector Raghunath Singh and driver Ashok Kumar, and cops, besides some Gujjars, sustained injuries. All of them were hospitalised.
The encroachments had come up in the form of a colony being developed by some influential persons, official sources said. In a move to get the encroachments removed, JDA's anti-encroachment squad led by Babu Ram, accompanied by some police and CRPF
personnel, reached Sidhra at about 8.30 am.
However, when the squad started breaking the plinths with the help of a JCB, which JDA had hired from Jammu Municipal Corporation, over 400 Gujjars, including women and children, appeared on the scene and stoned the officials and cops, forcing them to retreat and suspend
their work.
In this sudden attack, the JCB, a police vehicle and a JDA vehicle suffered extensive damages. Though police fired teargas shells, the Gujjars did not disperse. When contacted, the Gujjars said the land belonged to them. Though the Gujjars raised slogans against them, the JDA staff, including Babu Ram, waited for more police help to arrive.
The second attempt to break plinths was made at about 4.30 pm when more police and CRPF cops arrived there. The cops gheroed the Gujjars from three sides and then fired teargas shells, forcing them to flee towards Batra hospital.
While the cops chased them, the JDA staff dismantled all the encroachments, Babu Ram added.
He said they exercised utmost restraint in clearing encroachments and a took a full day so that no harm was done to the lives of encroachers.
He said they had reports that some Rangura residents had raised illegal structures on the JDA land close to the golf course. Babu Ram said nearly two kanals of JDA land was illegally sold by a person of Rangura to some persons.
He said some more encroachments would be removed from the area in the day to come.
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