Nine Delhi University students living in a paying guest accommodation in Hudson Lane on Tuesday reached out to the police for help against their landlord after “months of harassment, abuses and taunts”.
Speaking to The Hindu , a student said: “At 12.30 a.m. on Tuesday, the landlord, his wife, son and daughter, called one of the girls outside her room demanding payment of the electricity bill. They demanded that each of us pay between Rs.4,000 to Rs.5,000 for about 45 days. She argued that the amount demanded was exorbitant. Four of us were present in the PG at that time and told the landlord to speak to our parents in the morning. But he kept arguing. We have been paying huge electricity bills for the past 11 months, been subjected to arbitrary deadlines, besides sexist remarks about our character. But that argument proved to be the trigger.”
“We packed our bags and were about to leave in the morning, when they confiscated our luggage. His wife even shoved a girl, who nearly fell down the stairs. We called up the PCR. When the police tried to intervene, the landlord accused us of drug abuse. The matter reached Mukherjee Nagar police station by 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday. We were forced to sit on the street all day.”
The girl were given back their security deposit and the electricity bill for the past two months was waived off. No FIR was registered because of the subsequent compromise.
The student said: “It is not possible for us to consume 80 units of electricity since we don’t stay in the PG all day. We suspect that hidden connections were adding to our load.”
“Mental harassment”
Shipra Singh, who had managed to “escape” from the PG earlier but was present when the luggage was confiscated, said: “I decided to leave this place because the landlord declared it was compulsory to stay till June if I wanted my deposit back. I was not willing to stay here anymore because of the daily mental harassment. I spent 11 months here because of my security deposit.”
The students also reached out to Devangana Kalita of Pinjra Tod for help on Tuesday .
Ms. Kalita said: “Such cases take place in the city everyday. Most women living in PGs have to put up with random increase in rent, besides humiliation and intrusive surveillance. The struggle at this PG becomes important because it sets a precedent to fight against a landlord’s ‘moral policing’.”
Pinjra Tod, a collective effort by women students and alumni across colleges and hostels in Delhi, seeks to collectivise struggles against restrictive and regressive hostel authorities. They are now compiling a blacklist of PGs and have asked students with similar experiences to come forward.
The inciden t comes at a time when students are applying to DU in hordes and will soon start looking for PG accommodations due to minimal hostel availability.
(The writer is an intern with The Hindu )
