Police should “suo motu” evict any new encroachment by hawkers because it was their responsibility to ensure that government land was not taken over, mayor Firhad Hakim said on Friday.

Hakim was responding to a complaint from a Kasba resident during the weekly phone-in programme “Talk to Mayor” on Friday.

The caller told the mayor that new hawkers had encroached on portions of the road near his home.

The mayor also spoke about how hawkers had taken over the roads in New Market despite the roads being cleared of encroachments earlier.

“The police should act suo motu in such cases. It is the police’s responsibility to evict illegal encroachment on government land,” said Hakim.

“I will write to the police once more. But they should evict encroachments on their own,” Hakim told the caller from Kasba.

The man had told Hakim that when he went to Kasba police station with the plea to remove the hawkers, the police officers there told him that the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) had written to the police only once about the encroachment.

“The police told me that the KMC has not been in touch with them for long,” said the Kasba resident.

A senior officer of Kasba police station said he was not aware of the complaint.

“I will have to enquire about this,” he said.