Srinagar, May 19: A total of 32 structures were demolished and 3 hectares of forest land were reclaimed in RaikaBandi area near Jammu on Tuesday, sources said.
According to sources, the anti-encroachment eviction exercise jointly carried out on Tuesday involved a joint team of the administration, Forest Department, Forest Protection Force, police personnel, and officers of the belt force, in the presence of First-Class Magistrates.
They said that during the exercise and operation, the joint teams “managed to demolish 32 illegally constructed concrete as well as kaccha structures during the drive and approximately 3 hectares of encroached forest land were reclaimed during the operation”.
The sources said that the High Court in its order dated September 3, 2020, in the PIL No 25/2017 titled ‘SAVE versus state of J&K and others’ had categorically directed the Forest Department for the removal of the encroachments from forest lands in time bound manner and even directed for the constitution of high-level committees to achieve the desired objectives.
The sources said that the instant case involves the eviction of the majority non-local encroachers from the forest land and area adjoining to the fence line of old Tawi Herbal Eco Park and near the Chak line boundary of the BandiChak.
The sources said that Tuesday’s eviction exercise was not a sudden outburst and action but its timeline was quite old and falls back to months of the hectic efforts by the forest field staff to check the spread of these encroachers and on March 28, 2026, during the routine inspection by the field staff these encroachers attacked the forest field staff and even raised baseless allegation to falsely trap the government employees in false and frivolous cases.
The sources said that as such, sensing the urgency of the matter, the higher authorities were apprised and a procedure of issuing the show cause notices was initiated.
The sources said that all such exercises went in vain as the show cause notices found no takers and they vehemently denied accepting such notices and even misbehaved with the staff on duty leading the issuance of the eviction orders.
The sources said the authorities further intimated that a notion had been set in the public that these encroachers were residing in the area in question for the last many decades, but the Google Earth timeline imagery clearly shows that there were only 2 to 3 kutcha sheds upto the year 2009.
The sources said that majority of the structures which were dismantled on Tuesday have its place with the non-local families and only three to four families were of local Gujjar lineage.
