Man had forcibly taken possession of the 2-acre land after owner’s death in March 2010. The victim gets back his property with the help of local police.
Local police and officials of the Panchgani hill station municipal council (PHMC) helped animal activists take possession of the property of animal lover, the late Janice Smith, in Panchgani on Wednesday.
DNA, in its reports (‘Animal activists score over land sharks’, July 23; and ‘Animals denied land possession’, July 27) had highlighted the fact that one Nurulain Abdul Karim Shaikh had forcibly taken possession of the late Smith’s 2-acre property shortly after her death on March 17, 2010.
The Smith property functioned as an orphanage for pet animals, dogs, cats and mules.
On July 18, the Mahabaleshwar court had rejected Shaikh’s claim over the property and ordered him to vacate it. The court had allowed the Panchgani-based Janice Smith Animal Welfare Trust (JSAWT) to run an animal shelter on the property.
However, cocking a snook at the court order, Shaikh had refused to budge out of the property. According to animal activists in Panchgani, Shaikh had appointed his caretaker, Iqbal Shahabuddin, to occupy the bungalow with his family and had also appointed security guards to ward off animal activists.
This led the animal activists to approach both the PHMC chief officer, Asha Raut, and the Satara superintendent of police, KMM Prasana, both of whom promised help in evicting Shaikh from the property.
On Wednesday, a PHMC anti-encroachment squad led by the chief officer, Raut, a police team and animal activists from Panchgani and Pune walked into the Smith property at 4.30pm in a bid to remove Shaikh’s men.
The officer of Bombay high court committee for animal welfare, Manoj Oswal, told DNA, “The PHMC squad had to carry out a panchanama of Shahabuddin family’s belongings and force them out of the property. There was much drama and the process took a good one-and-a-half hours.”
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