1,000 illegal ‘mazaars’ found, won’t allow “land jehad” in Uttarakhand: CM Dhami

Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday said the government has identified around 1,000 locations where “mazaars” (tombs) and other structures have been illegally built to encroach public land.

“We are not against anyone but we won’t allow illegal encroachments. We won’t allow land jihad here. The state government has identified around 1,000 places where ‘mazaars’ and other structures have been illegally built. When the same were dug, no remains were found there. We believe in law and we won’t allow this. We don’t want to harm anyone. We will not allow appeasement of any kind here. We are going to stop appeasement,” Dhami said at a function in Kaladhungi in the Nainital district on Friday.

Dhami said there are imbalances in the demography of the state and the state will run a special campaign to check this. He did not elaborate.

The chief minister added that the state has enacted a strict law to stop forced conversions in the state, apart from constituting a committee for the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code in the state.

HT reported in December that the state forest department has started a crackdown on illegal religious structures that have come up in the protected forest areas of the state. Forest officials demolished 15 religious’ structures in the Dehradun forest division at that time. Senior forest officials said around 293 religious structures had come up in the protected forests of the state according to the departmental survey