Archana receiving a 'Care' packet from a volunteer
New Delhi: It was on January 11, 2023, that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) issued a notice asking the encroachers of the Tughlakabad Fort area of the national Capital to withdraw within 15 days of the notice. Time passed by but nothing happened. Suddenly the administration woke up from its slumber on the night of Sunday, April 30, 2023, and erased the mostly poor inhabitants of the encroached land, without any prior notice or any alternative rehabilitation measures for the evicted families, especially children.
These ‘encroachers’ of the Tughlakabad fort are now forced to spend sleepless nights under open skies and in rain. Their condition, like that of Archana, a student of ABHAS NGO school who lost her family home after the bulldozers razed it, is miserable. Archana’s friend Anu too used to live with her family in a home that has now been turned into rubble. Her father is camping under a plastic sheet nearby under trees to protect their precious goods. Her mother is with her two younger siblings. One is running a fever due to standing for several hours in the rain during demolition and afterwards on Sunday and Monday.
There are many children like Archana and Anu who now face the same plight as their parents. In the Tughlakabad eviction and demolition drive, 100 homes in Bazar Mohalla, 500 homes in Chhuriya Mohalla, 500 homes in Bangali Colony, 100 homes in Bihari Colony, 200 homes in Jatav Mohalla, 300 homes in Valmiki Mohalla, 12 homes in Sardar Mohalla, 200 homes in Kuan Mohalla and about 600 homes in Subash Colony are impacted.
Mohammed Islam has been camping out at the site of his demolished home since Sunday. With no advance notice of the administration’s move, the bulldozers went over his house with most belonging, getting buried under the debris of the brick structure. He has been digging through the rubble to retrieve whatever he can from his meagre possessions of the past. He stays on the site day and night, rain or shine, to guard whatever little valuables he had from pilferers.
When it rains Islam sits under the small tarp that he has erected on site. There is no electricity or water here. He uses the light of his mobile phone to light his way in the dark. It is a challenge for him to charge his phone. He has to go to the forest area to answer the call of nature and doing so at night is fraught with danger as metal, ceramic, and other shop objects are getting out in the field of debris, through which he has to navigate his way. He has no clear direction as to where he is headed next. Renting a place nearby is almost impossible as the rent has doubled.
Some NGOs and volunteers from nearby colonies now lend a helping hand to these hapless people. On-the-spot surveys and assessments for further relief and medical help were done with the support of ABHAS, a child rights organisation, working to empower children and adolescents so that they stay in school and complete class 12.
Last evening, the concerned residents of CR Park locality of South Delhi held a joint meeting to discuss ways to help the victims, by giving moral and material support. At this meeting, the consensus was to pool in all resources to render immediate and maximum support to the affected families in the form of cooked food, dry ration packets, basic medicines, sanitary napkins, utensils and clothes.
‘Care packets” from CR Park’s Green Community Initiative (GCI) and Social Initiative for Green Neighbourhood (SIGN) were distributed to some 50 evicted persons of Tughlakabad village living out in the open even in heavy rain. The care packet included a biscuit packet and snacks, sanitary napkins, a matchbox, soap, a small bottle of anti-septic, and two bottles of water.
However, with a ‘care packet’ that was designed to hold some dry biscuits, a packet of chips, a sanitary napkin, some matchsticks, soap, a small bottle of anti-septic, and two small bottles of water, Archana today seems clueless about her future and does not know where to go.
Their predicament has enraged many. “Why do the courts don’t ask these agencies – Delhi Development Authority, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Delhi Police, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, the local Members of Parliament, MLAs, as to how these homes come out? Why was the ASI sleeping all these years?” asks Indu Prakash Singh, a Human Rights Defender in his Facebook post. He adds: “We all know how corrupt the authorities are. Why shouldn’t action be taken against these authorities?” She went on to remind Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his Housing for All, 2022 slogan.
Some volunteers have even appealed to the employers of these evacuees, mostly helping hands, not to sack them for their abstention from working the past few days and instead offer them the much-required help in the form of financial support and house rent deposits.
– global bihari bureau
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