Noida, September 30
The Noida Authority on Friday bulldozed encroachments into common spaces by several apartment owners in Grand Omaxe housing society, where a spat between politician Shrikant Tyagi and another resident over the same issue had triggered a major row last month.
Tyagi was arrested after he was caught on tape abusing and shoving a woman who protested when palm trees were being planted in the open space in front of Tyagi’s ground-floor apartment. The razing of encroachments, mostly temporary constructions outside ground-floor apartments, came in the wake of a 48-hour notice by the authority after more than a dozen palm trees were again transplanted outside Tyagi’s apartment on Tuesday despite police presence.
Multiple excavators and around half a dozen dumper trucks were used to demolish the encroachment, Noida authority officials said.
Many society residents, whose houses had encroachments, initially resisted the movement of bulldozers and trucks in the society with some of them even sitting down in protest, urging them to spare their flats.
“After the initial resistance there was no law and order situation in the process. Adequate security personnel have been deployed,” ACP (Central Noida 1) Abdul Qadir said.
The exercise was carried out amid heavy police presence.
Following the Tuesday incident, the residents of the society who had objected to the plantation in the common area in August once again expressed concern over the encroachment.
A team of Noida Authority officials, which rushed to the spot the same afternoon, warned the Tyagi family to have the trees removed in two days or the officials would be forced to “remove the encroachment” themselves.
Anu Tyagi, wife of Shrikant Tyagi, and her relatives opposed the demolition team as they stood between the palm trees and the JCB.
“I am saying people’s houses should not be demolished. Initially also we said neither we are wrong nor others, but earlier I was alone so no one listened to us,” she said.
“I am sad that today parts of several people’s houses are being demolished,” she said, adding, “I only said that same norms should be applied to all. Do with us what is done with others and vice versa.”