Thousands of people in Haldwani have been protesting against the verdict of the Uttarakhand High Court, asking around 4,500 families to vacate the place they have been residing. A few persons have petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the high court’s decision.
In the middle of all of this mayhem, journalist Ismat Ara of the propaganda media outlet The Wire and Muslim activist Sarjeel Usmami have resorted to an old tactic of playing the victim card. While addressing this issue in their tweets and defending the people protesting, they claimed that the Uttarakhand Court is attempting to make the Muslim community in Haldwani homeless.
Ashok Swain, a fake news peddler, also claimed that the right-wing Hindu dictatorship plans to demolish 4,500 Muslim houses. He plainly framed this as a Hindu-Muslim conflict.
Fact Check
Using the keyword search “protest in Haldwani over Uttarakhand court ruling,” our team came across several media reports. After reviewing these reports, we discovered that the communalization of this situation is absolutely baseless because there is an illegal encroachment issue.
After studying the timeline of this issue, we found that the issue of land invasion in Haldwani dates back to 1975. It is being claimed that the unlawful occupancy of railway land in the region began in 1975. To encroach on this land, kutcha jhuggis were originally erected, which were then turned into pucca dwellings. Similarly, unlawful invasions of places of worship and hospitals were gradually undertaken, according to a Nav Bharat Times report.
Furthermore, the unlawful encroachment in Haldwani ultimately drew the attention of railway officials in 2007. The OpIndia reports that, on the High Court’s directives, action was conducted in 2007 to demarcate and eliminate the encroachment on railway land. However, as soon as the demolishing process started, it resulted in stone-pelting at the police and railway officials. Hence, the encroachment was stopped midway.
In 2016, Haldwani’s social worker, Ravi Shankar Joshi, filed a PIL against unlawful encroachment in Haldwani. After hearing his PIL, on November 9, 2016, the high court directed that encroachments on railway land be removed within 10 weeks.
The Amar Ujala report states that the court ordered that persons infringing on the land be served with notices under the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act and that public hearings be convened. The railways reported that around 29 acres of railway land had been encroached upon in Haldwani. The said territory was occupied by 4,365 encroachers. The encroachers were sent notices under the applicable act on the High Court’s orders, and suitable hearings were held by the railways.
Following the High Court’s ruling, the hearing began four years ago with the State Estate Officer, North Eastern Railway, Izzatnagar Division. According to the Railways report, 4365 cases of encroachment were heard. In which all disagreements have been resolved. However, none of the encroachers were able to provide a valid document of encroaching possession. There were no land-related papers discovered with anybody.
In December 2021, the Supreme Court issued rules to all states stating that if there is encroachment on railway land, people living near the track must be relocated within two weeks and those living beyond the track must be relocated within six weeks, allowing the railway to expand. May be the district administration and state governments will be responsible for relocating these persons wherever in the state. If all of their documents are proven to be authentic, the state governments should provide them with housing under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
Several orders and notices were issued to vacate the unlawfully occupied land in 2020 and 2021, but the encroachers continued to live there. The Uttarakhand High Court ordered that all unauthorized buildings be removed by December 2022. After nearly 10 years of hearing arguments from both sides, the High Court issued its decision in favor of railways. The residents were given seven days to vacate the property, and if they fail to do so, strict action will be taken against them.
However, there has been a recent update in this regard. On Thursday, the Supreme Court stayed the Uttarakhand High Court’s judgment, stating that 50,000 residents in Haldwani cannot be uprooted overnight. The bench noted that a program for rehabilitation and determining the rights of various people must be devised, while also taking into account the needs of the railways.
In our fact check, we found no communal angle in this matter. People like Ashok, Ismat and Sharjeel are purposely bringing up the communal angle in order to justify the encroachers illegal encroachment and to show that the government is against them and taking their houses away.
The communalization of this matter is compelling people to conclude that the government is taking such steps to target the Muslim community. One such Twitter user replying to ANI tweet said that the Hindu extremist government is pushing Muslim minorities out of their houses.
Lastly, while concluding our research, our team tried to know whether similar action had previously been taken by railway officials. Using a keyword search for “railway encroachment drive,” our team came across a few media reports. After reviewing these reports, we found that many such orders have been passed in the past when encroachers were ordered to leave or their houses built on illegal land were dismantled.
Ranchi was the site of one such encroachment drive. According to a TOI report dated November 26,2022, the Ranchi railway division bulldozed 50 illegally constructed buildings at Bisra Chowk, including residences, stores, and a salon, for its railway line extension project.
Another report from Indian Express dated January 5, 2022, states that in accordance with the orders issued by the Supreme court Western Railway personnel razed 2,546 huts built between Udhna and Surat railway stations to permit the laying of a third railway line.
We have provided the aforementioned examples just to debunk the leftist narrative. Many similar orders have already been issued in various states, in which encroachers from all faith communities were compelled to vacate and their homes were razed for railway line-related projects.
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