Two days after BJP MLA Pradeep Patel turned up with a bulldozer to demolish a boundary wall near a temple in Madhya Pradesh’s Mauganj district, triggering a stone-pelting episode after which he was taken into preventive custody, police on Thursday cordoned off the area in and conducted area domination exercise.
Patel, however, said that as soon as he was released, he would demolish the structure, which is part of alleged encroachment on the local temple’s land.
On November 19, Patel and his supporters turned up with a bulldozer, threatening to evict the residents and remove encroachments from the Mahadevan temple’s land in Devra village, leading to a tense situation in the area. As soon as the JCB moved towards the boundary wall, the people living on the land resorted to stone-pelting, resulting in injuries to around four-five persons, police said.
On Sunday, local leader Santosh Tiwari sat on indefinite fast, demanding the removal of encroachment made on nine acres of land near the temple. Patel and his supporters said a local revenue court had ruled in favour of eviction but that the administration had not complied with the order.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
