Bulldozers at Shaheen Bagh, stir pauses drive
NEW DELHI: Officials of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) attempted to remove purported encroachments in the Shaheen Bagh area, triggering protests and blockades for close to three hours before they relented and returned without any action.
The incident inflamed afresh a controversy now symbolised by bulldozers and demolitions that the opposition parties say is being used by civic bodies and state governments controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to target minority communities. The BJP rubbished these charges. The party’s Delhi unit leaders maintained — as did the SDMC — that the anti-encroachment drive in Shaheen Bagh was routine.
Monday’s action was close to the epicentre of the 100-day agitation against the Citizen (Amendment) Act, or CAA, that began in 2019 and comes less than a month after a demolition drive was carried out at Jahangirpuri following clashes between Hindus and Muslims.
At 11.30am on Thursday, an SDMC team reached with a bulldozer to a spot near the main road from Kalindi Kunj Park to remove encroachments, a drive it had planned for weeks but had to put off for lack of police permission.
Hundreds of local residents and some local politicians sat in front of the bulldozer, raising slogans against the civic body as well as the ruling BJP. They contended that whatever encroachment had happened in the area in the past had already been removed by locals of their own accord, and that there was no need for any drive or demolition in the area.
Seven people were detained and a complaint was later filed by the SDMC against Okhla legislator and Aam Aadmi Party leader Aamanatullah Khan and his supporters for obstructing government workers from carrying out their duties, hours after state BJP chief Adesh Gupta urged SDMC mayor Mukesh Suryan to do so. The police later registered an FIR, invoking sections pertaining to assault of a public servant and obstruction.
Later in the day, Gupta held a press conference in which he referred to his recent letter addressed to people of Delhi and party workers and said: “We have been saying this since the start that the AAP is trying to protect Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingya... Encroachment on public land has nothing to do with any religion or community. The action taken in Jahangirpuri was not against a religion.”
To be sure, encroachment is a problem but it is the timing of the action that is being questioned.