Srinagar, July 28 -- The trucks came after dark. Villagers in Ohangam, a small settlement in Beerwah tehsil, watched headlights swing into the construction site sometime after midnight on July 27, as workers began pouring material into the ground under floodlights that had no business burning at that hour.

By sunrise, everyone in the village knew what had happened.

The waste management plant residents believed they had halted had been built overnight, while the district slept.

"The entire material was dumped here at the site and full night work was taken up," said Fayaz Ahmad, a resident of Ohangam who watched the construction unfold.

His account, and those of his neighbours, point to a decision by the Rural Development Department to ...