A brother and his sister stand at the demolition site near the Mahananda river in Siliguri, where once stood their home. A Telegraph picture

Siliguri, April 21: The bulldozers of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) were at work again, today near the Mahananda river where stood around 150 shanties and 24 cowsheds.

After freeing the Champasari market area of encroachers yesterday, the demolition squad went about destroying the shacks at Baghajatin Colony in SMC?s ward no. 3.

A large contingent of policemen was deployed to prevent untoward incidents. Unlike yesterday, however, the eviction drive went off without any hitch.

By the end of the two-hour drive that began around 9 am, nearly 450 people were left homeless.

?I was away on work when I heard about the demolition drive. By the time I rushed home, my hut had already been pulled down and all our belongings thrown out,? said Umesh Thakur, a rickshaw-puller who lived in the cluster of 50 shacks near Jyotirmayee Athletic Club on the banks of the Mahananda.

SMC counsellor Ismita Hazra of neighbouring ward no. 2 explained why the drive had to be undertaken.

?We held a number of meetings and impressed upon these people to vacate the land. They, however, refused to listen to us. They are responsible for their own fate,? she said.

Hazra said the riverbank had to be cleared of all illegal encroachment to facilitate the implementation of the Mahananda Action Plan, which includes beautification of the banks.

SMC chief executive officer Samir Banerjee said these people had been illegally occupying the land for almost a year. ?We held a series of campaigns, both through the print and the electronic media, asking them to vacate the land that they had illegally occupied. In fact, the irrigation department, too, had warned these people, but to no avail.?

The squatters, however, had a different story to tell.

While some of them claimed they had paid money to local CPM leaders to get the land, others pointed out that the civic body had given them too less time.

Sunil Chandra Das, who has been living in Siliguri for 11 years now, said: ?I myself had paid Rs 8,000 to Gupta, one of the leaders, for one-and-half cottahs of land. And now there is nothing left.?

Radha Ghosh, who had shifted to the area a month ago, said she had paid Rs 5,000 to a CPM worker, Sunil Sarkar, for the plot.

When contacted over the matter, CPM leader and mayor-in-council, in-charge of garbage, Mukul Sengupta, denied the allegations. ?These charges always come up when there is an eviction drive being conducted. They are not true.?