Several agitated villagers on Saturday stalled the development work of City Forest project, being developed near Karhera village by the Ghaziabad Development Authority here, police said. The villagers uprooted the fencing net and forcibly pushed six JCB machines out from the precincts of forest, they said.
Hundreds of labourers, who were working on the project, were chased out of the forest area by the villagers. After getting information about the incident, GDA officials along with DSP, Sahibabad, Arvind Yadav, arrived at the spot with heavy police enforcement and tried to appease the agitated villagers. However, police resorted to cane-charge at the villagers to disperse them, an official said.
Narender Chauhan Noodal, who was leading the agitated villagers, said the forest land belongs to ‘Kheda Devat’ where their ancestors migrated from Rajasthan more than 200 years ago. They used to live and worship at the disputed forest land plateau.