Sambhal: Residents of Mubarakpur Band village in Sambhal district on Sunday began demolishing a madrasa, a mosque, and a primary school that had been illegally constructed on encroached government land, officials said.
On Saturday, Haji Munawwar, husband of the village sarpanch, approached Tehsildar Dhirendra Kumar Singh to request machinery for the demolition, citing that manual labour alone would be insufficient for the task.
A bulldozer, funded by the villagers themselves, was deployed on Sunday to clear the structures, including the Ghausul Madrasa, a mosque, and a primary school spread over three-and-a-half bighas of Gram Sabha land.
“It would take around 20 hours to clear the structures,” Munawwar said. He added, “The tehsildar visited the village on Saturday, and we explained that demolishing the structures manually was not feasible. We requested an excavator to expedite the work, which arrived today, and we are bearing the cost for its use.”
Confirming the illegal construction, the tehsildar said, “The villagers took the initiative to demolish the structures after realising they were built on government land and requested our support to expedite the process.”
With PTI inputs