Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi Cabinet Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj has urged the judiciary not to order demolition of any jhuggi-jhopri (JJ) cluster in Delhi until in-situ house is provided to the slum-dwellers as provided under the law.
The Delhi Cabinet minister alleged that the DDA, Railways, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), and the Delhi Police are demolishing slums in violation of the country’s laws, court orders, and humanitarian principles.
Expressing his concern, the minister further added that in the Safdarjung Flying Club’s slum cluster, the Railways has issued a notice stating that people should evacuate on their own, while the responsibility for rehabilitation lies with the Central government.
Bharadwaj alleged that the Central government’s agencies have rendered countless people homeless in Sunder Nursery, Tughlaqabad, Mehrauli, Vasant Vihar, and Priyanka Colony.
“For the last few months, it has been observed that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government agencies like ASI, Railways, Delhi Development Authority, Land and Development Organisation are conspiring to demolish JJ clusters wherever they are on their lands,” he said.
Bharadwaj said the law of the country and the law of Delhi are very clear that notified JJ clusters in Delhi can be demolished only when the dwellers are rehabilitated at the same place. “This means that legally these clusters are old but before they are demolished, the people living in those JJ clusters will have to be given houses in-situ,” he said.
Launching AAP’s campaign, ‘Ghar bachao, BJP hatao’ on Sunday against “the BJP-ruled Central government’s policy to render Delhi’s slum-dwellers homeless”, Bharadwaj met the people who live in jhuggis behind the Safdarjung Flying Club.