NIT men beaten up by encroachers on Wardha Road

NAGPUR: The Dhantoli police station received a complaint on Thursday about some shop owners roughing up personnel from the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) during an anti-encroachment drive. The NIT personnel were removing the number of shops selling cricket bats and other sports equipment etc along Wardha Road near Lokmat Square.
Pradeep Ganguly, NIT divisional officer (west), informed that he had accompanied some of his subordinates to remove these encroachments on Thursday afternoon.However, the shop owners were in no mood to relent. When the NIT officials tried to raze the temporary sheds being passed off as shops, the situation got out of hand. “Some of these shop owners got together to beat up four of our officials with sticks and bricks.
Three of these personnel received minor injuries, while one was hurt seriously. He has been admitted to a private hospital and is undergoing treatment even now,” Ganguly said. Following the incident, NIT chairman Sanjay Mukherjee ordered that a police complaint be made in this regard, and it was duly registered at the Dhantoli police station. However, the dwellers and shop owners at the spot claimed that the story was entirely different.
“We had been promised by officials earlier that if we paid Rs 1,100 per year, we would be allowed to continue our business at the current spot,” informed Ajay Kesra, one of the shop owners. However, he was not sure if the order had come from the Dhantoli police station or the Nagpur Municipal Corporation. In addition, the election photo identity cards (EPICs) that the shop owners brandished did not have any effect on the NIT personnel. “If we have official proof that we actually live here, then how can we be encroachers? The officials did not even listen to this plea, and went ahead with the demolition,” Kesra said.