61 of 64 houses demolished; 3 to be razed today
VASCO
The drive by Sancoale Comunidade to demolish 64 illegal structures on its land at Zuarinagar continued for the second day, as 43 structures were demolished on Thursday.
Eighteen structures were demolished on Wednesday and three more structures are expected to be demolished on Friday.
When contacted, Sancoale Comunidade Attorney Jayesh Fadte said one house and two structures were pending for demolition and they would be demolished on Friday.
“When we had done a survey, we had found a total of 31 completed houses and 33 houses under construction, a total of 64 structures. We have demolished almost all structures and we have one complete house and two houses under construction that are left and these three structures will be demolished on Friday.”
“Most of the structures were actually abandoned because they were under construction when we got a stay on their construction and these structures remained abandoned,” said Fadte.
Fadte said the Sancoale Comunidade committee is relieved since justice was served to them finally after a very long legal battle after he filed writ petition in the high court.
“This is very important message for all people that no matter what, illegal houses can never be legalised no matter how hard they try with any authority. I had filed a writ petition in the high court after being frustrated because houses were being built overnight here and people would come to attack us when we tried to stop them.”
“We don’t have pity on these people because they did not pay heed to our request and warnings and we had to take police protection to carry out a survey. We obtained a stay through the high court in the construction and people filed an appeal with the additional director of panchayat, but it was dismissed. They then filed the appeal in district courts but it was again dismissed and finally they went to high court but they did not get the stay order,” said Fadte.
“With this demolition drive, people will think a hundred times before they try to build an illegal house on Comunidade land,” said Fadte.
