Gujarat minister Harsh Sanghavi on Wednesday said that Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel’s “bulldozer will roll out in the days to come”, claiming that the government had succeeded in removing illegal encroachment from public land, The Indian Express reported.
Sanghavi, the Gujarat minister of state for home affairs, said that in the past two years, “illegal encroachment” had been removed from government land, and that schools and hospitals will be constructed there.
“Bhupendra Patel’s bulldozer will certainly work in the coming days too as illegal encroachment is still present in many cities,” he added.
The statement came nearly a month after the Supreme Court issued guidelines to curb instances of “bulldozer justice”, or punitive demolitions of property. The court said that in cases of demolitions, adequate time must be given to the affected persons to appeal against the action, and that demolitions cannot take place without issuing show cause notices first.
The Supreme Court, however, clarified that the order did not prevent authorities from acting against encroachment on public land.
Sanghavi on Wednesday said that the Gujarat government was determined to fight against cow slaughter, “love jihad” and “land jihad”.
“Love jihad” is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that accuses Muslim men of being part of an organised plot to trick Hindu women into romantic relationships to ultimately convert them to Islam. “Land jihad” is another Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslims plot to usurp public land by illegally building religious structures on them.
“Gujarat is the only state where the accused in cow slaughter cases are not only caught but convicted too,” Sanghavi claimed, according to The Indian Express. “In the last one year, 16 persons were convicted of cow slaughter. Be it Kutch, Banaskantha or Amreli, we ensure the accused are convicted so that it creates fear among the killers.”
The minister also claimed that the police were able to rescue “innocent girls” from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra in cases of “love jihad” and reunite them with their families, even in the absence of complaints.
“Bhupendra Patel’s stick will not spare anyone,” he added.
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