Bengaluru, July 7 -- Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Eshwar Khandre has hit back at Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy over allegations of forest land encroachment by the Forest Department on HMT land in Bengaluru.

Khandre said the central PSU HMT, not the Forest Department, had illegally encroached on non-diversified forest land and sold it to real estate firms.

Speaking to the media, he said, "Now that orders have been issued for the eviction of forest land, there is no scope for any real estate activity here. So Kumaraswamy's allegations don't make any sense."

Responding to Kumaraswamy's charge that the Forest Department encroached on HMT land to facilitate real estate, Khandre clarified that encroachment of non-d...