Bengaluru: Without serving any eviction notice, the BBMP on Saturday night demolished 400 houses at Kariyammana Agrahara near Bellandur saying that it violated the buffer zone regulations.
One of the BBMP officials told Deccan Chronicle that the demolition was carried out since the settlements were on the buffer zone, but the activist Vinay Srinivasan said that the land where houses were demolished rendering over 1,500 homeless were on the private property.
"The owner of the private land used to collect rent. The lake is 1,300 metres away from houses, so no way it is in the buffer zone. The houses were demolished when the residents were at work," Srinivasan added.
The inhabitants were mostly from Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and the activist believes that it was easy for the Palike to launch a crackdown since most of them were from poor families.
Karnataka HC has said that the buffer zone should be 30 metres away from the lake, while the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has maintained that it should be 75 metres, while in this case where no survey was carried out, houses more than 1,000 metres away from the lake were demolished.
