Demolitions around the Mehrauli Archaeological Park continued for the fourth day on Monday, as authorities resisted fervent protests by residents and went about the anti-encroachment drive, which veered close to monuments in the neighbourhood.
On Monday, several buildings in the vicinity of Bhool Bhulaiya, one of the monuments in the Archaeological Park, were either razed or damaged. (Vipin Kumar/HT Photo)
Officials said that they had so far “reclaimed” 4,180.6 square metres of land in and around the historic south Delhi area.
On Monday, several buildings in the vicinity of Bhool Bhulaiya, one of the monuments in the Archaeological Park, were either razed or damaged.
Residents, however, insisted that their homes were legal and that they had valid documentation and certification.
What unfolded all throughout Monday was, in effect, a battle to resist a demolition drive with documents.
Rajkunwar Singh, a 34-year-old chartered accountant with an office in south Delhi’s Lado Sarai, wanted to move from his rented flat to his own home, he wanted a property somewhere close to his workplace.
Eventually, he zeroed down on Laxmi Sagar Apartments, a six-storey building in Mehrauli’s Ward-8.
“There was a proper wall between the DDA forest and the apartment. There was no confusion,” he said.
The two-bedroom, 765 square-foot apartment cost him ₹38 lakh after registry. He paid ₹15 lakh upfront and took a bank loan at a normal rate of interest. “The builder showed me the chain of documents, and registry was being done without a bribe,” Singh said.
Less than a year later, three apartment buildings in the vicinity of Singh’s apartment have been demolished.
The demolition began on Friday ahead of a proposed G20 meeting at the park in South Delhi, that has around 55 monuments under the protection of DDA, the state archaeological department and the Archaeological Survey of India.
Officials of Delhi’s land-owning agency have insisted that the action is in consonance with Delhi high court directions, which have, several times in the past few years ordered that encroached land be cleared.
In a statement on February 11, DDA said they conducted a demarcation drive in December 2021 to identify the unauthorised constructions. Action on that front, said officials, came to a standstill as the Omicron-driven wave of Covid-19 gripped the Capital.
Then, on December 12, 2022, the agency pasted notices on several houses, asking residents to leave their homes, which the officials said were built illegally on government land.
DDA officials said the land-owning agency legitimately owns most of Ladha Sarai village, which has seen a bulk of the demolition action.
However, officials said illegal constructions have also come up on plots owned by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Delhi Waqf Board.
Residents disagree.
Ram Meher, a local shopkeeper who guided many homebuyers here over the years, asked how the government accepted registrations for the homes if they were illegal. “What can be a bigger proof of the legality of a property, if the government is registering it,” asked Meher.
With residents looking at them with scorn, builders in the area acknowledge the long legal past these lands have been embroiled in. But they insist that they never hid these facts from the buyers, and didn’t need to.
AAP MLA from Malviya Nagar Somnath Bharti, who is also a DDA member, said that despite the AAP-led Delhi government cancelling the previous demarcation order, DDA continues bulldozing homes.
“We were working to find a solution to this issue but on February 9 but DDA brought out an order for a demolition drive that was to be carried out the following day. This demolition order was brought out on the basis of a demarcation line that has no basis. The line dividing DDA land and private land was shifted to include more households where thousands of families reside, and no one is answering the basis of this shift,” Bharti said.
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