A slum cluster in Delhi, a life lost and the politics of it
Rahul Gandhi attacked the Centre and Delhi's government over the razing of a slum cluster by railways where a baby died
New Delhi: While the razing of the slum cluster in Shakur Basti area of Delhi raised political hackles, the Delhi high court also came down heavily on the action by the Railways.
The slum cluster in Shakur Basti, nestled between the east Punjabi Bagh colony and Paschim Vihar, housing nearly 5,000 people, was razed on Saturday morning after the Railways, which owns the land, evicted people from their homes and bulldozed all that stood. Six month old Rukaiya, daughter of Mohammed Kalim was found dead under a pile of her parents’ belongings, which triggered a furore. By Monday, a number of politicians, and NGOs, had descended on the residents of the colony, as the latter sat out the winter cold in makeshift tents scrounging around for food and blankets.
Rahul Gandhi on Monday attacked the Centre and Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal government over the razing of a slum cluster by railways where a baby died, as he visited the site in Shakur Basti area of West Delhi and assured the homeless that he will fight their “battle".
“Whenever a slum is about to be demolished, call Rahul Gandhi. He won’t let this happen. We will try to help you. As you know we are not in the government, it is AAP’s (Aam Aadmi Party) and BJP’s (Bharatiya Janata Party) government. But we will try to protect you, we will fight your battle," the Congress vice-president told the slum dwellers.
In reaction, Kejriwal on Monday called Gandhi “a kid" for questioning AAP’s protests over the demolition of a slum in Delhi.
“Rahul Gandhi is a ‘kid’. Perhaps the Congress party did not tell him that the Indian Railway comes under the ambit of the central government," he said.
Members of the AAP are protesting the demolition of the slum colony.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi said while criticizing AAP’s protest, “Why is AAP doing dharna? They are in power in Delhi."
Acting with the ease and felicity of a consummate politician, Kejriwal has quickly turned the demolition drive in Shakur Basti into a national event, into yet another televised, twittered battle in the ongoing war between his government and the Centre. By empathising with the plight of the victims, supporting their right to a dignified life and labeling the demolition bestial, he has put his rivals in a spot.
Amid the raging storm on demolition, the Delhi government is also training its guns on political bigwigs over cases of alleged encroachment of land in upscale colonies. AAP MLA Somnath Bharti, a Delhi government representative in Delhi Development Authority (DDA), after pointing out at least three instances of encroachment by BJP and Congress leaders, has now initiated a move to compile a list of such encroachments across the city.
Meanwhile, the post-mortem report of the seven-month old baby girl who died in the Shakur Basti area post the demolition drive stated that the death was due to shock, “as a result of chest and head injury due to blunt force impact". The report submitted by the department of forensic science and toxicology of Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital said the injuries were ante-mortem, which means the injuries were reported before death. The report comes in sharp contrast to Railway minister Suresh Prabhu’s statements in Parliament on Monday, where he defended the demolition saying that the child had died before the drive began and that the encroachers in slum land had refused to vacate the land despite repeated notices.
Later on Monday, a 45-minute meeting between Prabhu and Kejriwal threw up a long-term strategy of coordination to avoid further controversies such as the Shakur Basti incident in the future.
The chief minister was told that the Railways had served notice to the encroachers in Shakur Basti to vacate the land as early as March and again in October but no one had budged.
It was agreed that the Railways and the Delhi government, for the first time, will form a coordination committee at the senior official level to resolve any dispute or contentious matter arising out of the national transporter’s plans in the capital.
The Delhi high court on Monday came down heavily on the Railway Ministry and the Delhi Police for razing down the slum cluster in northwest Delhi last week, leaving thousands homeless in the biting cold. A Division Bench of Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice Vibhu Bakhru directed the Railways to take immediate measures to rehabilitate about 5,000 victims of the demolition and file a report on it before 16 December, the next date of hearing. The petition was filed by a senior Congress leader.
“What was the tearing hurry to demolish Shakur Basti JJ cluster in December? You really don’t care about the people, you just want to remove them," the Delhi HC bench hammered away at the Railways. “Railways had no business removing people," the bench added. “Are they safe now? You have forced them to suffer and shiver in the cold. Every minute that they spend out in the cold counts," the bench said.
“Given the scale of the human tragedy, the court expects all parties to act in coordination to ensure that relief and rehabilitation are given to persons who lost their homes. This should be done without regard to the legality of the Shakur Basti slum as it existed," the bench said.
The incident perhaps points to a larger problem. Almost 1,000 hectares of Railways land has been encroached across the country of which 60 hectares is in Delhi where 47,000 jhuggis are holding up projects worth over ₹ 260 crore.
The Shakur Basti encroachment was considered “soft" since it was only two years old, with most structures temporary in nature.
Retrieval of land from encroachers has been tardy business. Official data available with the railway ministry shows that in the last three years, it has been able to retrieve only 112 hectares across the country.
The report for Delhi is worse. Between 2003 and 2005, Railways paid ₹ 11.25 crore to the Delhi government for removal of 4,410 encroaching settlements or slum dwellers from its land in the Capital. But till date, the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board has been able to remove only 297 jhuggis.
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