The disputed “pond” adjoining Purbasha Housing Estate. Picture by Amit Datta

The developer of a property at the centre of a controversy over its nature has come up with a “CMC document” that terms the patch “land”, not a pond.

The dispute on Maniktala Main Road on Saturday had triggered allegations of assault with dogs and firing in the air.

Mani Group, the owners of the plot, handed over a set of documents to Metro claiming the land under scanner was not a “pond”, but plain land.

“The available assessment records about the nature of the land at 32 Canal Circular Road since 1926-27 reveal that this was a plain land. We have checked the documents till 2005 and nowhere is it recorded as a ‘pond’. We had also checked with the land reforms department,” said Subesh Ray, the senior vice-president of Mani Group.

According to Mani Group, the developer purchased the 11-bigha plot on Canal Circular Road in 2005 from the Duttas’ and other stakeholders after verifying all assessment records.

But the civic body, which has slapped a stop-work notice on the developer, is “still checking” its records. “Our records suggest that it is a tank. The assessment reports that they are showing cannot be conclusive… Still, we are checking all records,” said mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya.

On Saturday, the site — adjoining Purbasha Housing Estate — became a battlefield when some residents protested work at the site. A group of youths along with the security guards at the site tried to chase them away by firing six rounds in the air.

The skirmish — barely a few minutes after state transport minister Subhas Chakraborty left the site failing to convince the protesters to give up — left six injured.

The neighbourhood was calm on Sunday, but the residents of Purbasha housing estate were determined to carry on with their fight.

The copy of a CMC document, according to Mani group, which shows the tract as “land”

“We don’t know what records the group has furnished. This is a pond according to the site plan of our estate and even the civic records corroborate that,” said Chiranjib Deb, a resident of the estate that came up in the seventies.

He found support in Anindya Karforma, the director-general (project management unit) in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC), who issued the stop-work notice after visiting the site last week. “The site is recorded in the CMC tank list as a water body. We had prepared the list in 1998-99,” said Karforma.

Mani Group, which has plans to create IT-office space on the site, claimed the civic body had never raised any objections when it filed an application for mutation of the land just a few weeks ago.

“We had submitted all documents and we understand the mutation process is on,” said Ray of Mani Group.