Khori demolition starts, runs into rain, protesting villagers
Faridabad: Nearly 2,000 police officers reached Faridabad's Khori village on Wednesday morning with bulldozers and earthmovers to finally raze the settlement of around 30,000 residents on orders of the Supreme Court. They were faced by angry residents, desperately looking for a way to save their homes and heavy showers that the late monsoon has brought to the NCR.
After having started the entire demolition exercise with intimidation - first cutting off electricity to the village and then water supply, then started talking to the residents about their difficulties before promising EWS flats to those displaced - only provided they can produce a slew of documents.
The preparation for Wednesday's demolition began early after there was a heavy deployment of police officials at areas that lead to Khori. Close to 2000 law enforcement officials that also included 500 women officials were present at Khori to ensure that the process of demolition was carried out smoothly. The police prevented the media from entering the area to report on the demolition.
By mid-afternoon after all the preparations the bulldozers finally began to demolish homes. And as around 400-500 homes were being razed, both public officials and helpless former occupants of the homes looked on.
After one-and-a half hours, the process was stopped due to heavy monsoon rains around the area and also protests by several women against the officials — pleading with them to not break their homes at Khori.
After hurried discussions, officials decided that they would return for the rest of the exercise today (Thursday).
Speaking to Millennium Post, aggrieved residents said that since they were financially not well off, they had become easy targets first for the land sharks who duped them and now stern public officials who are insensitive to their livelihoods and difficulties.
"We had been staying here for 20 years. Why did no one ever raise their voice then and allow this colony to get developed. It will take you one moment to first decide and then implement the process of demolition of thousands of houses but have you ever contemplated or sought answers from your conscience about what will you do to those lives that will also get destroyed because of demolition of these houses," said 52-year-old Reshma.
Hoping there can be some change in the stance of the State Government, a protest was also organised at Haryana Bhawan in New Delhi.
Firm in its stance, the Supreme Court in its order of June 7 had given Faridabad public agencies a time frame of six weeks to raze the illegal structures at Khori.
