RAWALPINDI, Oct 11: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) on Saturday launched an operation to reclaim its land from encroachers near Tench Bhata and demolished about 20 kiosks and seven shops.

The 14 kanal of land had been in the occupation of the encroachers for the last 30 years.

The operation, led by RCB magistrate Khalid Mehmood, lasted till the evening. As many as 100 workers of the RCB sanitation department and 50 each from the enforcement and garden branch assisted by a police force of about 40 personnel took part in the operation.

In the beginning, the kiosk-owners and shopkeepers tried to put up resistance but were overpowered by the operation staff, using heavy vehicles and other machinery.

The civic body plans to construct an overhead water tank on the land and had been trying to convince the occupiers to willingly vacate it.

The kiosk-owners and shopkeepers criticized the forcible dislodging of their colleagues.

The affectees said the cantonment board had plenty of land in different places but it always targeted the poor. According to them, the water tank could be built somewhere else.

The RCB magistrate, who conducted the operation, told Dawn that the whole exercise was peaceful. “In the beginning, they tended to resist but we convinced them,” he added. He said the vendors had erected illegal structures and shops on the land.