As the anti-encroachment drive in India’s capital continues, bulldozers have rolled into South Delhi’s Mangolpuri and New Friends Colony areas on Tuesday. Heavy security has been deployed in the areas as the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) carries out the first phase of the 15-day demolition drive.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Mukesh Kumar has been detained during the drive for allegedly disrupting the process.
Distressing visuals of the residents are coming in from both the areas. In a report by NDTV, an inconsolable resident of Mangolpuri, Bindu said, “I have been running a vegetable shop for the past 35 years, I am not an outsider, I am from Delhi. SDMC ordered us a day before to move our shops and I moved it but they still destroyed our shop. Don’t know how I will survive now.”
On Monday, chairman of Central Zone, SMDC, Rajpal Singh had stated that the municipal corporation has a roadmap ready for the next 15 days and that encroachments by both poor and rich will be removed from Delhi without any bias.
He further added that the money spent by the SMDC to remove the encroachment will be compensated by property owners.
The development comes after the well-known CAA protest site Shaheen Bagh was targeted for the demolition drive, on Monday. Delhi Municipal Corporation on Monday had met with a large number of protestors as they arrived. Several AAP and congress workers were also detained for staging a ‘dharna’ and blocking the bulldozers.
