BHOPAL: The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) embarked on a demolition drive on Monday against encroachments at a park in the Sneh Nagar locality of Indore, the country’s cleanest city, which reportedly contributed to the temple tragedy which left 36 devotees dead and 17 injured while attending a Ram Navami pooja.
At this park, the roof of a bavdi (step-well) inside the Beleshwar Mahadev Jhoolelal Temple premises had caved in on Thursday, killing the devotees. According to local residents, Sneh Nagar Garden was one of the biggest parks in the city till a few decades back, when a multi-purpose recreational centre for kids was slated to come up in the late 1980s. But continuous encroachments there by people with political patronage saw multiple illegal structures coming up there.
Despite repeated complaints to the IMC to remove the encroachments, it merely issued notices to the culprits in 2022 and January 2023, the residents had alleged after the tragedy unfolded on Thursday.
They also alleged that local BJP MP Shankar Lalwani was backing the office bearers of the trust managing the private temple, two of whom have been booked by city police for culpable homicide not amounting
to murder, but have not yet been arrested.
Meanwhile, alleging that the IMC demolished an ancient temple in the name of removing encroachments, the Bajrang Dal’s Indore convener Tannu Sharma – who, incidentally, was booked for making abusive remarks against Prophet Muhammad a few weeks back – has called for a public protest against the move on Tuesday.
It was not just the Sneh Nagar Garden from where the IMC removed the encroachments on Monday. The drive was also undertaken against encroachments on wells/step-wells at Dhakkan Wala Kuan, Sukhlia and Qila Road Gadra Khedi.
The IMC also issued notices to ensure the removal of similar encroachments at other water bodies, including wells and step-wells at 18 different places in at least 12 municipal zones of the city. On Friday, MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered a state-wide drive to remove encroachments from water bodies, particularly wells and step-wells, and punish those found responsible for open bore wells anywhere in the state.