By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
A day after an unruly mob pelted stones and blocked trains and vehicular traffic in Rishikesh, the Uttarakhand state President Ganesh Godiyal on Monday said his party would provide legal assistance to the affected people in Rishikesh.
He also said the government must take to regularize the encroached lands where people have now constructed their houses.
“The government is trying to scare people under the garb of the Supreme Court’s ruling. We have told the people that the Congress would provide legal assistance,” Godiyal said after visiting Rishikesh.
The stone pelting occurred when the police and forest teams were undertaking a survey in Rishikesh on the orders of Supreme Court on Sunday. Some people were also injured in the stone pelting incidents, police said. However, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dehradun Ajai Singh reached the spot and persuaded the people to clear the railway tracks and highways following which the traffic was restored.
Following the order passed by the Supreme Court on December 22 in the case of the lease of reserved forest land, the Uttarakhand government has constituted an inquiry committee, which is conducting a survey of the forest land. During this process, local residents started a strong protest.
The people staged a sit-in on the railway tracks in the Mansa Devi area at 4 pm, stopping the Barmer Express bound for Rishikesh for four hours. Some people also blocked the road. Meanwhile, some people also pelted stones at the police and forest department teams.
The inquiry committee is required to submit its status report to the Supreme Court regarding the lease of 2866 acres of reserved forest land before January 5 next year. Despite the strong protests, the inquiry committee continued its on-site measurement work in areas such as Bapu Gram, Shivaji Nagar, Meera Nagar, Nandu Farm, Malviya Nagar, Amit Gram, and Mansa Devi.
The Supreme Court on last Monday deprecated the Uttarakhand government for allowing large-scale encroachment of forest land in Rishikesh, calling it “shocking” that the state had failed to reclaim thousands of acres despite the withdrawal of an earlier land allotment at least four decades ago.