Man who dug up road will have to pay damages : Yogi

Lucknow : Taking a stern view of an associate of a BJP MLA digging up a newly constructed road in Shahjahanpur because the contractor refused to pay alleged ‘goonda tax’, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed officials to realise the damages from the accused against whom an FIR has been lodged.

The MLA’s aide, along with 15-20 associates, had dug up the road on October 2 night using a heavy earth-mover, according to an FIR lodged in this connection.

Ramesh Singh of M/s Shakuntala Singh, Gorakhpur, the firm that was constructing the road, said: “The seven-km road was being constructed at a project cost of Rs 12.5 crore and the Jagveer Singh, citing himself to be an associate of the local MLA, had been demanding 5 per cent of the project cost as ‘tax’. Jagveer Singh and his associates for the past few months have been threatening and bashing up our workers on site.

“We were just 15 days short of completion of the project when at around 9 p.m. on October 2, he, along with 15-20 others, came to the site with a heavy earth-mover and dug up a three km stretch of the road and poked holes in the rest of the patch.”

Shahjahanpur SP Ashok Kumar Meena said: “We filed the FIR immediately after the application was made on October 3. We also rounded up some people for questioning and a police team is engaged in arresting the main accused soon.”

According to a government statement, Divisional Commissioner Saumya Agrawal has issued an order to Public Works Department (PWD) chief engineer Sanjay Tiwari to do an assessment of the damage to the road and the monetary loss due to it.

Agrawal also said that the police were conducting raids to arrest all the accused in the case.

The Jaitpur police in Shahjahanpur have filed the case under the Damage to Public Property Act 1984 and other relevant sections.