Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): No building around Mahakaleshwar Temple will be built higher than the temples’ shikhar (apex), but people have built three to four storey hotels. Despite the Ujjain Municipal Corporation (UMC) giving G+3 permission for building construction around the temple, people are building four storey buildings and running hotels.
On Saturday morning, the UMC gang demolished the fourth floor of a hotel located next to the police station near the temple by hammering it. Hotel Shivsagar NX, located next to Mahakal police station, was permitted by the UMC to construct G+3, but the hotel owner Mohanlal son of Mangilal Vaswani, resident of Mahakal Marg, constructed four floors on the hotel.
Dormitory-type beds were placed on the roof by installing elevation windows on the fourth floor. There was a provision for the visitors to stay here. The UMC gave notice to the operator to remove the construction of the fourth floor, and when he refused to accept it, the employee went to paste the notice on the hotel with the police, despite which the illegal construction was not demolished by the operator at his own expense.
On this, SDM Arth Jain, UMC deputy-commissioner Kritika Bhimawat, and building officer Jagdish Malviya reached Mahakal police station in the morning with the encroachment removal gang of the UMC. The officers said that on July 4 the UMC had given notice to the hotel operator and instructed him to remove the encroachment, but he did not show interest in removing the encroachment. When they reached the hotel in the morning to take action, visitors were staying in the hotel rooms. At the same time, the employees were showing reluctance in removing the beds and other items kept on the fourth floor. While the conversation was going on between the officers and the hotel operator on the first floor, the demolition gang was waiting for the officers' signal on the fourth floor.
When the hotel owner’s son Naresh Vaswani showed the documents to the administration and UMC officers, the officers said that he should give it in writing that they would remove the encroachment on the fourth floor with immediate effect. Naresh hesitated in giving it in writing and at the same time the employees of the encroachment gang standing on the fourth floor started hammering.
The situation was such that the visitors and employees present inside the hotel remained trapped inside. People could not even remove the vehicles parked outside the hotel and within no time the glass of the windows on the fourth floor started breaking and scattering on the road.
