The Hindu : Over 50 families shifted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 24, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Over 50 families shifted

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 23 . Nearly 60 families had voluntarily shifted from the Gautampuri-II slums in Yamuna Pushta here by Friday evening, officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi said, while the local Councillor, Farhad Suri, alleged that poor people staying there were being terrorised by the police and MCD officials.

Mr. Suri claimed that he and his mother, Tajdar Babbar, who is the area MLA, were not permitted to enter the slum clusters on Friday by police, who had cordoned off the entire area. Four companies of police, including one of women, were deployed at the Gautampuri-II slum cluster today as a precautionary measure.

The entire area was sealed off and all entry points barricaded. Mr. Suri alleged that even area residents who in the morning had gone out for work were not allowed back in the evening. "This is not only undemocratic but also a violation of basic human rights,'' Mr. Suri alleged.

"People there are being terrorised by the police and forced by the civic body officials to sign papers so that they can be relocated. All this is being done at the instance of the Union Tourism and Culture Minister, Jagmohan. These people are being removed on the eve of Lok Sabha elections because they do not vote for him,'' Mr. Suri charged.

He alleged that even the mandatory Rs. 7,000 was not being collected from the relocated families, as the prime objective of the officials now was to shift them. "Such a thing had never happened in the past,'' he said.

Meanwhile, a children's delegation from Ankur, a non-government organisation, today submitted a memorandum to the President urging him not to relocate the slum cluster at least till the annual exams were over. Some 5,000 students signed the memorandum.

The relocation exercise is being carried out at the behest of the Delhi High Court order of March 2003 to remove the slum clusters from Yamuna Pushta as it was polluting the river. On Thursday, the first day of the relocation exercise, a large number of politicians -- the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, the Delhi Shiv Sena chief, Jai Bhagwan Goel, and the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, visited Gautampuri.

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