Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Shanti Upvan demolition begins
Several residents of the building are still waiting to collect their belongings from their flats
DOMBIVLI: Residents of Shanti Upvan building, many of whom are still waiting to collect their belongings from their flats, were left teary-eyed on Friday when the Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) initiated demolition of the F wing of the building.
The KDMC with a manpower of 20 staff and 16 police personnel initiated the demolition of the F wing using a jaw crusher machine. The team has so far managed to demolish parts of the upper floors up to the fifth floor. Since Sunday morning, the 250 families of the Shanti Upvan building in Dombivli, were hoping to get their belongings back from their flats, after the F wing of the building developed major cracks on Saturday late night.
While the residents of other wings in the building got the chance to collect their belongings, the residents of F wing were left with no other option but to wait as most of the homes in the wing could not be accessed as their doors had jammed due to the structural imbalance of the building.
“My birds and fish were rescued on Thursday night by cutting the grilles of my flat. They were completely drained without any food or water. However, we could not get any of our stuff as the civic body has now started demolishing the building and have not told us anything about our belongings,” Sapna Singh, 36, who lived on the second floor of the F wing with her family, said.
On Friday, angry residents had a tiff with the demolition team several times.
They were demanding that the demolition be stopped and residents be allowed to retrieve their belongings from their homes.
Chandan Thakur, who lives on the seventh floor of the F wing said, “The only reason why we are opposing this is that the KDMC has not done any audit of the building before demolishing it.” “Also, there is not clear communication on whether we will get our stuff or not. At least 25 families are still waiting to get their basic documents. I am one of them. I cannot shift to a new place without my important belongings. The KDMC has failed miserably in dealing with the situation and winning our trust,” he added.
On the other hand, Bharat Pawar, KDMC ward officer, said, “We will have to do further demolition forcefully as residents are not cooperating. They were constantly stopping us from work. Whatever recovery of stuff could be done was done. After the demolition work of the building, when the clearing of debris will be carried out, we will return the belongings to respective residents. We need the cooperation of the residents to do the work.”