Summary of this article
Residents of Mubarakpur Band village in Sambhal district demolished a madrasa, mosque and primary school built on encroached government land.
Villagers requested assistance from local authorities, following which a bulldozer was deployed, with costs borne by the community.
Officials confirmed the structures stood on Gram Sabha land and said the demolition was initiated by villagers themselves.
The residents of Mubarakpur Band village in Sambhal district on Sunday began demolishing a madrasa, a mosque and a primary school built illegally on encroached government using a bulldozer, officials said.
On Saturday, Haji Munawwar, the husband of the village sarpanch, had requested Tehsildar Dhirendra Kumar Singh to provide machinery to carry out the demolition work, saying manual labour alone was insufficient for the job.
On Sunday, a bulldozer was deployed in the village, paid for by the villagers, to clear the structures, including the Ghausul Madrasa, a mosque and a primary school spread over three-and-a-half bighas of Gram Sabha land.
“It would take around 20 hours to clear the structures,” Munawwar said.
“The tehsildar visited the village on Saturday, and we explained to him that demolishing the structures manually was not possible, as it would take a long time. So we requested him to provide an excavator, which arrived today. We will bear the cost for its usage," he added.
Confirming that the structures were built after encroaching on Gram Sabha land, the tehsildar said, “The villagers took the initiative to demolish the structures after realising that they were built on government land. They had requested our support to expedite the process.”
