Anti-encroachment drive leaves residents furious
THE ANTI-ENCROACHMENT drive not only left the residents furious, but also impacted the lives of those residing in the adjacent areas
New Delhi, May 12: Abdul Najeeb and his pregnant wife had to move out of their home barefoot as their repeated pleas to let them collect their belongings fell on deaf ears as SDMC officials accompanied with police rolled in bulldozers to carry out an anti-encroachment drive in southeast Delhi’s Madanpur Khadar on Thursday.
Within a few minutes, one of the walls of their home was destroyed and most of their belongings were lying under debris after the building next to theirs was demolished.
The anti-encroachment drive not only left the residents furious, but also impacted the lives of those residing in the adjacent areas.
“It was 9 am when policemen knocked our door and asked us to move from the house as the next building would be demolished. We pleaded them to grant us 10 minutes just to remove our belongings but they denied,” a tearful Amina, who is ninemonth pregnant, told PTI.
“The policemen assured us that nothing inside their house will be damaged and now everything is under the debris. We are a family of five and lived in one room,” Amina said.
Civic authorities on Thursday carried out anti-encroachment drives in various parts of Delhi that sparked violent protests in the Madanpur Khadar area where the locals claimed that legal structures were bulldozed.
According to the police, the locals in Madanpur Khadar tried to stop the bulldozers and pelted stones at security personnel but were chased away.
While the SDMC removed illegal and temporary structures in Madanpur Khadar and Dhirsen Marg, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) took action in Rohini and
Karol Bagh.
Another Kanchan Kunj resident Wasim Ahmed, whose under-construction building was razed, claimed that he had legal documents “yet it was demolished without any notice.”
“The authorities have not served any prior notice for demolition of my building. I have the documents for the plot and tried speaking to them when the bulldozer arrived in this area. But, they were not ready to listen,” Wasim said.
He also claimed that “the authorities and policemen previously took money from them, in order to allow them to continue construction.”
The fresh actions are part of a series of antiencroachment drives by the civic bodies since midApril.
On April 16, the exercise to remove illegal structures was undertaken in Jahangirpuri. In the following days, it was carried out in areas such as New Friends Colony, Dwarka, Najafgarh and Lodhi Colony. —