Over 300 Trees Cut Overnight In Mumbai's Aarey Forest As Peaceful Environmentalists Detained

The Aarey Colony in Mumbai has once again turned to a venue of a showdown between environmentalists trying to save the thousands of trees there and the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation which is hell-bent on cutting them to make space for a car shed.

The latest round of showdown began on Friday night after the MMRC began cutting trees in there, just hours after the Bombay High Court dismissed the petition filed by environmentalists to declare the area like a forest.

According to environmentalists, MMRC jumped into action in the dead of the night and even before they could do something scores of trees had already been cut.

They also alleged that the Save Aarey campaigners have been blocked and some of them even detained by the police at night for protesting against the felling of the trees.

"They are using force against us who are protesting peacefully there. Some of our activists have been detained by the police at night. Right now it is a curfew-like situation there. All the entry points to Aarey have been cordoned off by the police. They are not even letting us within a radius of 3 kms of Aarey," Yash Marwa, a member of the Aarey Conservation Group said.

He also claimed that till now more than two hundred trees out of 2600 in total have been cut by the MMRC and feared that more will be felled soon.

"We will continue with our protests and we are trying to get more people including celebrities involved to make their voices heard. The next 12 hours are going to be critical as they still cutting the trees," Yash said.

He also alleged that the MMRC is relying on the excuse of the Bombay HC dismissing the plea by environmentalists.

"The stay on cutting of trees was based on the previous HC order. Now since that has been dismissed, they are taking this liberty. Even if they are pulled up by the court later, the fine for felling a tree is just Rs 500. They will just pay that and get away," he alleged.

Stalin Dayanand, the founder of NGO Vanashakti, which has been leading the legal fight said the cutting of trees is illegal.

"The High Court dismissed the petition on the ground that the case is still pending before the Supreme Court. When the government told the HC that it should not hear the case as it is pending in the SC, it means that they had accepted to abide by that order," Dayanand said.

He also alleged that the MMRCL has not followed the due process before the cutting of the trees. "The trees can only be cut after 15 days from the date of uploading permission of MCGM. They uploaded the permission on Friday evening and in a few hours began cutting the trees," he said.

Dayanand said he will request the SC for an immediate hearing in the case on Monday, but expressed fear that by then all the trees could be gone.

"They knew that they had two days in front of them before we could mount a legal challenge. That is why they resorted to what they did in the night. This just shows what kind of characters are ruling us. What are we doing to ourselves? Where are we taking our country to?" he asked.

The Aarey Colony, which spans across 1,287 hectares and located adjoining the Sanjay Gandhi National Park has been for long a battleground for the development v/s environment debate.

While the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited argues that the project was of paramount importance for the city and that it is not a forest or a floodplain, environmentalists say that Aarey is the lungs of Mumbai and the destruction of the last patch of greenery in the city will have far-reaching environmental consequences.