<![CDATA[Aurangabad: In accordance with the recent order by the Aurangabad bench of the high court, the civic body has decided to launch a demolition drive against 1,101 illegal religious structures from Wednesday. On Tuesday, officials from the police, district and civic administration along with representatives of Waqf board, Cidco, MSRDC, MTDC and Cantonment Board held a meeting to discuss about the ways to implement the order. Following the meeting, municipal commissioner D M Mugalikar declared that the civic body would implement the high court order from Wednesday. "Four civic body squads have been prepared to undertake the task and police bandobast would be taken accordingly," he said. On Monday, police commissioner Yashaswi Yadav too had declared that he was ready to provide adequate police bandobast to the civic body in its endeavour to implement the high court order smoothly. Taking a strong view on illegal religious structures in the city, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court recently directed the police machinery and the municipal administration to initiate action on its orders and submit a report in a phase-wise manner to the high court by August 8. The high court has also warned the AMC chief and police commissioner of contempt of court proceedings, if they failed to follow its orders. While passing the order, the bench comprising Justice S C Dharmadhikar and Justice Sangitrao S Patil expressed their displeasure over non-removal of these structures over the past nine years since it had passed a detailed order in this suo-motu petition in 2008. "Nearly nine and half years have been spent in identifying these structures, their number and their precise location. That they come in the way of development including road widening is an admitted position. That they cannot be tolerated any longer merely because they are religious structures has also been amply clarified and after the Supreme Court's order," the high court had observed. The high court also referred to its earlier order while referring to the apex court's order and said, "Nobody can be allowed as of right to put up a religious structure on a footpath, pavement or corners / sides of a busy road or on the middle of the road or on the road line or on any public property or government land and then claim that if that is removed, the right to freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution is in jeopardy. We do not think that any such principle or statement of law has been ever laid down."]]>