Civic authorities ‘locked’ in village, cops to the rescue

The police “rescued” an enforcement team of the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) earlier this week after residents of Carterpuri village allegedly kept them “locked” for nearly three hours, following a demolition drive, said the officials on Sunday.

Last month, the chief minister’s window — a grievances redressal and monitoring system in Haryana — complained to the MCG about an illegal encroachment on a revenue road in Carterpuri village, and on verifying, it was found that an illegal gate was built there, said the MCG officials. After demolishing the gate, the house occupants and a few of their neighbours surrounded the MCG officials and locked them captive for nearly three hours. Later, a team of the Gurugram Police reached the spot and rescued the officials.

“We carried out an on-spot inspection in Carterpuri village earlier this week, and found that a gate was built illegally on a revenue road in the village. The next day, a team of nine MCG officials demolished the illegal structure. Soon after, the house owner, his son, and son’s three friends surrounded us, and then held us captive for nearly three hours. We were able to leave the premises after an intervention of the police,” said Andeep Mallik, junior engineer of MCG, who headed the demolition drive.

He said that the MCG officials suffered minor injuries during the incident. “Since Carterpuri village comes under a 900m restricted area, no new construction is allowed in that area as per the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. So, the MCG did not need to serve any prior notice for illegal encroachments in the area,” said Mallik.

In September 2015, the court barred any type of new construction in the 900m radius of the Indian Air Force (IAF) ammunition depot in Sector 14. A case was registered against the people concerned under relevant IPC sections at the Palam Vihar police station. It was for the first time that the civic body officials were locked during a drive.

“No arrests have been made so far, and a probe is on,” said Devdutt Chauhan, assistant subinspector of Gurugram Police, who is investigating the case.