Chandigarh, July 21 -- The UT estate office on Sunday reclaimed nearly 12 acres of government land that had been illegally occupied by furniture sellers in Sectors 53 and 54 for the last four decades.

Riding on bulldozers, the demolition team arrived around 7 am but put off its operations for a while to allow traders time to remove their goods. The team began razing the tin structures, which had served as makeshift shops, around 8.40 am and went on till 1 pm, leaving behind a large quantity of debris which will now be cleared by the municipal corporation.

A team of 1,200 police personnel and 200 officials from the UT estate office, engineering department, and civil defence, led by deputy commissioner (DC) Nishant Yadav and senior superi...