Sarva Sewa Sangh building in Varanasi demolished

The building that housed the Sarva Sewa Sangh, which was co-founded by the socialist ideologue Jaiprakash Narayan and considered to be a legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Sarvodaya leader Vinoba Bhave, at Rajghat in Varanasi, was demolished with the help of bulldozers by the administration on Saturday.

Seven people, including social workers and Gandhians, were taken into custody after they protested against the demolition and tried to prevent the bulldozers from razing the building. Many of them lay on the road to protest the demolition.

According to the reports, the demolition was carried out in the presence of a large number of security personnel, including the jawans of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) accompanied by senior officials of the district administration and Northern Railway.

The demolition follows a long legal battle between the Sangh and the Railways, which claimed ownership over the 8.07 acres of land on which the Sangh building was built. The Sangh had moved the Allahabad High Court, and later Supreme Court, seeking stay on the demolition notice served by the administration but could not get any relief.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh had also appealed to the Centre not to demolish the building.

Reports said that as many as six bulldozers had been used to demolish houses - Gandhi Vidya Sansthan and the Sarva Sewa Sangh Prakashan buildings inside the complex. There was also a post office inside the complex and according to the reports, the authorities gave till Sunday to shift the documents and other items from there.

The Sangh claimed that the building had been built on the land sold to it by the Railways earlier. The Railways, however, had earlier served a notice to the Sangh to vacate the premises claiming ownership of the land. The court of the district magistrate had rejected the plea of the Sangh and later relief to it was denied by the HC and SC.