FACT FINDING REPORT OF BURNING OF 200 HOUSES IN MEERUT

On 5 March, 2019 about 200 houses belonging to
mostly daily wage category of Muslim community  were burned by
personnel of Cantonment Board along with local police as the Cantonment Board
has been laying claim to their land in Budhia ka Baag or Mahigran or Macheran,
a name derived from fishing trade, in Meerut city. It is interesting that the
same Cantonment Board people first allowed people to settle and build houses on
this piece of land by accepting bribes, otherwise how could 200 houses have
come up? But some people also claim that not the entire piece of land belongs
of Cantonment Board, some of it has been bought by them and the ownership is
private. However, whatever documents they had have now been burned. On 5 March,
2019 first the police came and demolished one house at 4:30 pm and then the
settlement was up in flames by 5:15 pm. The fire brigade did not arrive until a
couple of hours later by which time the entire settlement was reduced to ashes.
No government official has visited the area so far, neither is there any
possibility of any compensation arriving from authorities. So far only some
local Muslim politicians have come forward to offer some relief.  Two
contact numbers in the settlement:

Mohammad
Bilal, Moazzin of Masjid, 8979056369, Dilshad, 9027702362.
Site visit
conducted by Faisal Khan, 9999746196, Sandeep Pandey and

Shabbir
Husain Dar, 7889568297
Khudai Khidmatgar
and Lok Rajniti Manch and NAPM