The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Migrant labour ousted from private land

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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Migrant labour ousted from private land

Special Correspondent

‘They had agreed to move out but did not keep their promise’

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

HELPLESS: Workers after they were asked by the land owners to move out in Bangalore on Thursday.

Bangalore: People living in about 150 hutments in Vasantnagar — behind Ambedkar Bhavan on Miller’s Road — were ousted from their dwellings on Thursday by the owners of the land.

The ousted people are migrant labour from Gulbarga district who are employed in construction work in Bangalore for 10 years. They had been living on this piece of private land for the past 10 months, said one of those rendered homeless.

The owners of the property, who were at the spot, said that they had warned the people living in the hutments many times to move out, but they had not heeded their warning. “They had agreed to move out today, but broke their promise,” said one representative.

Though the ousted labour have no legal claim on the land, their condition on Thursday was pathetic. “We were the ones who ‘built’ that building,” said Seetamma, pointing to the Ambedkar Bhavan.

She said they were living on a vacant site a little distance away, but moved to this location after they were asked to leave the spot.

“Where do I and my children go now?” asked an anguished Devamma, carrying her five-month-old son, Parushurama, on her hip. “We do not want to take away anyone else’s land. But they should tell us where else we should go and build our huts,” she said.

Shekhar, a student of Standard VI at the government school in Vasantnagar, said that he had not gone to school on Thursday because his “house” had been pulled down.

“They keep throwing us out of anywhere we settle down. How can I study or prepare for my examination?” he asked, still wearing his blue school uniform. “I cannot go to school when I have no house to stay in and my parents are on the road,” he said.

Devamma, another aged worker at the settlement, said that they had all moved from Gulbarga because there was no rain and work on agriculture land. “We do not even have ration cards,” she said.

Kannada Rakshana Vedike and Dalit Sangharsh Samiti (N. Murthy faction) activists, who visited the site briefly, were not to be seen after some time.

By late evening, the homeless were seen packing up the meagre belongings and looking for an alternative place to pitch their hutments.

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