The Hindu : Row over eviction at Bharathi Nagar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Row over eviction at Bharathi Nagar

By Our Staff Reporter

A resident outside his razed dwelling at Korukkupet after an eviction operation on Monday.

CHENNAI JUNE 30. Residents of Bharathi Nagar near Korukkupet today complained of being forced out of their homes by personnel of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board without giving proper notices, even as officials maintained that the eviction was carried out to construct tenements for the slum dwellers.

Residents of Bharathi Nagar 11th Street, where nearly 40 huts were removed, said civic workers began to bring down the houses all of a sudden.

"We were shocked when bulldozers began to bring down our houses," said Lakshmi, wife of Muthu, a freedom fighter, as certified by the Chennai Corporation. "We have been living here for the past 20 years," another resident said. P. Satyavani, who heads the Dr.Muthulakshmi Self-Help Group in the Bharathi Nagar area, recalled that last week, officials from the TNSCB visited their area and began to issue `tokens'. When they were asked why residents who had been living there for two decades had to be removed, the officials, who were joined by local functionaries of a political party allegedly pushed her down and assaulted her, she said.

"The partymen further threatened to set our huts on fire if we did not leave on our own," Ms. Satyavani said and added that she, along with her father, S. Pandian, and elder brother, Murugan, went to the R.K.Nagar police station seeking protection to their property following the intimidation. However, they were arrested and while Mr. Pandian and Mr. Murugan were lodged at the Chennai Central prison, she was lodged at the Saidapet sub-jail for three days.

Police sources said a case had been registered against Mr. Pandian as he allegedly prevented a TNSCB official from carrying out his duty of verifying the allottees during his visit to the area last week and that the arrest had been made only for this reason.

TNSCB officials categorically stated that the slum dwellers were given notices well in advance and that the land was being cleared for constructing a three-storey building with 340 tenements, essentially for slum dwellers in Bharathi Nagar.

The Rs. 4.47-crore project received approval from the 11th Finance Commission, sources said. Tokens had been properly distributed to the allottees and once the construction was completed, they would be relocated to the tenements, they said.

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