DDA move to demolish houses at Chilla Khader 'inhuman', alleges former Delhi Cong chief

New Delhi, Jul 8 (PTI) Former Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary on Monday alleged that the DDA, in violation of the court order, demolished nearly 200 houses at Chilla Khader to drive hundreds of poor people into the open without any alternative place to relocate them though they possessed valid residential proofs.

Addressing a press conference here, Chaudhary alleged that the DDA misrepresented in the court that the poor people living in Chilla Khader who eke out a living through farming on the Yamuna floodplains were doing commercial activity, and within two days after the court order, the DDA came with bulldozers early morning to demolish the houses of the farmers without even providing tents nearby to relocate them, which was inhuman and against the direction of the court.

The Congress leader said that from Okhla barrage to Chilla Khader, nearly 1,500 families carry out farming activities on the Yamuna floodplains.

They possess all relevant documents to do farming and it was only a means to earn their livelihood, he added.

Chaudhary said the Delhi Congress will meet the lieutenant governor and other concerned authorities, and approach the higher court if needed to get justice for these uprooted people, as they were also about to harvest their farm products which will now get submerged as water has been released from the Hathni Kund barrage in Haryana.

The Kejriwal government changed the rehabilitation policy framed by the Congress government to harm the poor people living on lands owned by various government agencies, he alleged.

The Congress government, at a cost of over Rs 2,000 crore, had constructed 45,000 flats under the Rajiv Ratan Awas Yojana, but these flats have not yet been allotted to the slum dwellers for whom they were constructed, Chaudhary further alleged. PTI NIT AS AS