dehradun kedarnath wildlife sanctuary which houses a number of critically endangered animals such as musk deer brown and black bear himalayan tahr etc has been facing rampant encroachment of its area by local villagers according to forest officials in the past five years quite a few temples and illegal shops had come up in the sanctuary area which they dismantled despite facing pressure from religious and political leaders the encroachments they say have increased after the chief minister announced to develop madh maheshwar temple situated inside the sanctuary which is included in panch kedar fifth kedar pilgrimage circuit to be developed on the lines of kedarnath and badrinath by the state government on saturday villagers protested after the forest officials demolished another structure the flash flood martyrs memorial which locals claimed had been erected in the memory of the 2013 flash flood victims memorial which had just two pillars was built below which a tiger was spotted at a neverbefore recorded height of 14000 feet some time ago the national green tribunal too is hearing the matter concerning regularizing flights going over the sanctuary in view of the disturbance caused by the helicopters flying overhead to wildlifethe forest department brought down the memorial in the remembrance of flash flood victims just because it was built inside the kwls which is not apt said a villagerneetu luxmi divisional forest official of kwls said our forest team had been trying to dissuade them from erecting the pillars in name of memorial we could not get police support as here only revenue police functions so we have no option but to dismantle it as it was illegal and in violation of forest conservation actakash verma former dfo of kwls said seeing the prospect of religious tourism flourishing due to prominence of mad maheshwar temples the people intend to grab the land and claim ownership in kwls i had to remove number of shanty shops huts etc over a stretch of 7 km near temple in my tenure from 201214 another newly built temple named budha temple was also brokenhe said when he broke one more temple named kali shila and its many associated structures built by an old baba and his german lady disciple along with many other disciples he got call from a central minister baba ramdev and politicians even from southern states against doing so but he stuck to his ground later a case was booked against baba who was sentenced to jailno area of the forest can be used for any constructionas per law no area of the forest can be used for any construction plotting cordoning of or fencing without following the proper procedure of land transfer where approval is sought from the statecentre government for land transfer to build a structure any new structure which does not exist in the forest maps created in 1965 or are not part of 10 year working and management plan of the particular reserve forest is considered encroachment and is removed