5 of 100 legal houses rendered unfit in WR’s anti-encroachment drive in Garib Nagar

One of the owners’ hysterical cries drew the attention of policemen standing nearby, who then called a railway official to address the situation. But by the time orders were given to stop the bulldozer, at least five homes had been rendered inaccessible by the debris that had fallen on them

MUMBAI: They were assured that their homes would not be touched, with the Western Railway (WR) even announcing on Thursday that bulldozers would not be used against them.

5 of 100 legal houses rendered unfit in WR’s anti-encroachment drive in Garib Nagar

However, on Friday afternoon – the fourth day of WR’s anti-encroachment drive in Garib Nagar, Bandra East -- at least five of the 100 homes in the area that the court had exempted from demolition, were rendered unliveable by bulldozer action.

Earlier, WR authorities had promised they would manually dismantle the illegally built upper storeys of the protected homes, so as not to harm the legal ground floor structures. On Friday afternoon however, two bulldozers could be seen dismantling the upper storeys, rendering the ground floors inhabitable.

One of the owners’ hysterical cries drew the attention of policemen standing nearby, who then called a railway official to address the situation. But by the time orders were given to stop the bulldozer, at least five homes had been rendered inaccessible by the debris that had fallen on them.

“Why couldn’t they have first cleared the debris lying all around, before touching our homes?” asked Shaikh Feroz Ali. “Where will we live now?”

“We were confident nothing would happen to us; else we would have removed all our belongings over the last three days,” said autorickshaw driver Syed Suhail. Two others -- Rizwan Ahmed and Mirza Aashik Kesar Beg – were similarly affected with their homes lying buried under debris.

All of them surrounded the railway official who had rushed there, remonstrating with him: “You promised us this wouldn’t happen. Didn’t we cooperate with you? Didn’t we empty out the upper storeys last night?” The official was heard saying it had been a mistake.

When HT reached out to Vineet Abhishek, PRO for WR, to comment on the incident, he said: “We had to demolish the upper floors of 100 structures. In many cases bulldozers had to be used as the upper floors were too strong to be demolished manually. Workers may have gone ahead as the ground floors were equally strong.”

Ramesh Wagh, senior police inspector of Nirmal Nagar police station said, “We are not aware about the matter and no one has come forward to lodge a formal complaint.”

Meanwhile, efforts are on to rehabilitate the dishoused. While advocate Faiyaz Alam has sent a letter to the National Minorities Commission, with a copy to the National Human Rights Commission, voicing his protest at the manner in which the demolition drive was carried out, and demanding rehabilitation, community worker Tanveer Shaikh has drafted an application to the collector to call his attention to the homeless. A copy of the application has also been sent to deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde.

“We can’t just sit back after so many have been rendered homeless,” said Shaikh, who has been working with the slum dwellers in Bandra East for the last 22 years. He is getting the affected to sign on the applications, which will be deposited with the collector, along with other documents to prove their eligibility under either the SRA or the PM Awas Yojana.

According to Shaikh, many of those dishoused have government documents tracing back to before 2000, which qualifies them for the SRA scheme. Others whose family income is under ₹18 lakh a year will be eligible for the PM Awas Yojana.

Earlier with the Congress, 48-year-old Shaikh is now a member of Shiv Sena, and is confident that his party leader Eknath Shinde, who is also housing minister, will see to it that families who fall under various housing schemes will be rehabilitated.

(With input by Megha Sood)