Mumbai: Hours after the Bombay High Court dismissed petitions opposing tree-felling in Aarey Colony in north Mumbai, a prime green lung of the city, for Metro work, activists alleged that authorities have started hacking trees.
Of over 2,600 trees which are to be felled, 200 had been cut by Friday night, activists alleged.
Videos of tree-felling went viral on social media, though it could not be confirmed from Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation officials if indeed tree cutting for the planned metro car shed in Aarey had begun.
But the site of the proposed car shed saw heavy police deployment as hundreds of people gathered there late Friday night to stop trees from being hacked.
Several tweets lambasted the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra as well as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation over the issue.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Preeti Menon Sharma said tree cutting was a violation of the poll code in force for the October 21 Assembly elections.
Earlier in the day, the Bombay High Court refused to declare Aarey colony a forest and also declined to quash the BMC tree authority's decision allowing felling of over 2,600 trees in the suburban green zone to pave way for a metro car shed.
A division bench of Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Bharati Dangre dismissed four petitions filed by NGOs and environmental activists on issues related to Aarey colony in Goregaon, a major green lung of the metropolis.
Read: HC dismisses petitions on forest tag, tree felling in Aarey Colony
