A matter of dishonour

Last Republic Day, something unprecedented took place outside the Nashik district collector’s office. Hundreds of tribals from Trimbakeshwar, a nearby temple town famous for Kumbh Mela, assembled outside the gate, asking for a chance to enter the premises and salute the national flag. They had assembled to protest against the treatment meted out by local government officials to Ramrao Londhe, an ex-serviceman, who displayed exemplary valour in the 1971 India-Pakistan war. The police, however, used brutal force to disperse the crowd.

Londhe, who lost his father when he was six, joined the Army in 1970, at the age of 19. He was posted in the Barmer sector in Rajasthan when the Bangladesh liberation war broke out a year later. On the night of December 13, 1971, his company was ordered to capture a Pakistani post. Despite stiff resistance from enemy forces, Londhe and his fellow soldiers were successful in their mission. But Londhe sustained grievous injuries to his right hand. In recognition of his bravery, he was decorated with war medals.

“The government also gave me a plot of 135 square metres in Trimbakeshwar,” said Londhe. “After my retirement in 1986, I built a small house and an office to help ex-servicemen.” He had applied for approval to maintain the office as an extension to his house and had been paying property tax although ex-servicemen are exempt from paying property tax. Londhe has also been working as a volunteer for Shramjivi Sanghatana, an NGO working for tribal rights, founded by former MLA Vivek Pandit.

On May 13, 2015, the sub divisional officer and municipal authorities of Trimbakeshwar arrived at Londhe’s house without any prior notice and demolished the house and the attached office. “My father had gone to Nashik. I was working on the computer when I heard the tin roof crashing on the other side,” said Londhe’s son Yogesh. “I begged them to stop as it was a legal structure for which we were paying taxes. But the SDO said my father should face the consequences for harassing government officers by filing RTI queries.”

Londhe said nothing was spared. “Not even my war medals, which were placed before a painting of Bharat Mata with the tricolour in her hands. They even took away the debris in a tractor,” he said.

Chandrakant Pathak, a 63-year-old RTI activist, who used to get his applications prepared at Londhe’s office, said there were large-scale land encroachments in Trimbakeshwar. “The slum encroachments before 1995 need to be regularised, but municipal councillors have encroached upon plots reserved for public amenities,” said Pathak. He said he was beaten up by municipal councillors in the presence of the chief officer of the municipality when he went to seek reply to his RTI application on the issue. “I had received detailed lists of all types of encroachments from the chief engineer’s office. Eleven municipal councillors have encroached upon government land and set up commercial activities and built houses,” said Pathak. He said Londhe was targeted because the encroachers thought that he, too, was involved in the fight against them. The administration, however, gives a different reason. “According to the information I was given, Londhe’s house was on the Kumbh Mela procession route and therefore it was removed,” said Chetana Karur, chief officer of the Trimbakeshwar municipality.

After Pathak filed a complaint before the state election commission, the commission acknowledged that the municipal councillors had violated the Maharashtra Municipality and Industrial Townships Act. “The district collector is empowered by section 44(3) of the act and accordingly, the complaint has been forwarded to the Nashik district collector for further action,” the commission wrote in its reply to Pathak. The act empowers the district collector to demolish illegal structures and disqualify erring elected officials permanently. THE WEEK has documents to show that 11 councillors have encroached upon plots reserved for public amenities.

Muffling dissent: Former MLA and social activist Vivek Pandit and supporters being forcibly removed from outside the Nashik district collector’s office | Amey Mansabdar

Pathak also filed a writ petition before the High Court on the issue. Following this, the court asked the SDO and tehsildar to furnish details of the demolition of the encroachments and also for a time-bound schedule for the demolition of the remaining encroachments. The tehsildar subsequently wrote to the chief officer to take appropriate action. Karur told THE WEEK that there was a misunderstanding about illegal structures and encroachments. “The councillors have illegal structures, not encroachments,” she said.

Pathak said the councillors sought political intervention once it was clear that the election commission would initiate steps to disqualify them. “They approached Girish Mahajan, guardian minister for Nashik district, and he must have assured them of all help if they joined the BJP. Sixteen councillors (six from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, four from the Nationalist Congress Party, three from the Congress, one from the Shiv Sena and two independents) joined the BJP on December 25, 2015,” said Pathak.

Pandit, founder of Shramjivi Sanghatana, said it showed the nexus between corrupt officials and politicians. “The ruling party calls everybody antinational and talks so much about soldiers and sacrifice. But a war veteran has been brought to the streets by the same people.” Pandit said it was a dangerous precedent that the Trimbakeshwar chief officer and the Nashik district collector were protecting the violators of law instead of acting on the orders of the election commission and the High Court. “The government should compensate Londhe for monetary losses and mental torture,” said Pandit. “How can the government neglect the genuine grievances of a brave soldier? We will approach the High Court for compensation and to get all illegal structures in Trimbakeshwar razed. The collector, SDO and the CO should be punished.”