Bhatkal: The forest department reportedly raided an under construction house on Wednesday morning which was located on an encroached land at the Devi Nagar of Jali at Bhatkal taluka. The officials demolished the walls and the roof of the house which was half way through its construction. The incident brought the people from the neighborhood to the demolition site, who strongly protested against such an action of the forest department and gheraoed the forest officials. The BJP leader MM Naik, the Congress leader and the president of Horata Samiti Rama Moger, Ganapati Naik, Narayan Naik along with many others protested against the issue and questioned the Assistant Conservative Officer, Mr. RG Bhat who had come from Honnaver regarding the same. They said that there were a lot of encroached places at Bhatkal, where the construction work was under process and questioned that why did the forest officials choose to demolishthis particular building leaving all the others behind.

The Bhatkal Asst. SP Mr. Sudheer Kumar Reddy along with his associates also reached the confrontation spot and the people began presenting him with their problems right there . The situation seemed tensed for a while, but the forest officer MG Naik was unaffected with the happening episode and ordered his associates to continue with the demolition of the illegal construction. This led to the dispute between the forest officer and the leaders, but Mr. MG Naik said that he would not let the construction to continue at any case.



The forest department has filed a case on Ganapati Jattapa Naik, Narayan Mastappa Naik, Rama Datta Naik, Jagdish Naik, Shankar Rama Naik and Somayya Naik at the Town Police station, alleging that these people had interrupted with the work of forest officials. On the other hand, Ganapati Naik has filed a case against the forest department claiming that the forest officials had threatened him of shooting him with a gun.

It is told that this encroached land was occupied by Ganapati Naik and he had tried constructing a house on the same place for three times prior to this, but it is said that every time it had been stopped and demolished by the forest officials. The forest officials informed the police about the issue early on the Wednesday morning and reached the construction spot to stop the construction work and demolish the already constructed structure.

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