The People’s Union for Civil Liberties described the BJP government’s action as illegal, communal and discriminatory
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – A Muslim landlord had to pay a heavy price as his house became a target of the marauding bulldozers on Sunday after a 15-year-old son of his tenant was accused of stabbing a classmate at a school over a dispute in Rajasthan’s Udaipur district on Friday.
Hindutva outfits gave a communal colour to a dispute between Muslim and Hindu students and created a ruckus setting fire to vehicles and forcing shopkeepers to down their shutters. As the situation grew out of control, the local administration imposed a curfew and suspended the internet to control the Hindutva mob.
“We received information about a dispute between two kids. One of the kids was attacked with a knife. Since the injury was deep, the boy had to be referred to the hospital immediately. He is presently in the ICU and his condition is stable,” Udaipur District Collector Arvind Poswal told reporters on the day of the incident.
Hindutva groups continued to protest by gathering in front of the hospital where the student was admitted. They started demanding the demolition of the house where the family of the accused resided.
BJP MLA from Udaipur Rural, Phool Singh Meena, also urged Chief Minister Bhajan Lal to carry out bulldozer action. On 16 August, the local administration issued a notice to the father of the minor accused saying that the house was illegally built on the Forest Department land.
“Therefore, you are being informed through this notice that you voluntarily remove the encroached structure built on forest land by 20.08.2024. If you yourself don’t remove the aforementioned encroachment sand, stones, pucca constructions from the forest land, then the department will oust you from the forest land and action will be taken to remove encroachments from the forest land,” says the notice in Hindi issued by the Forest Department.
Rashid Khan, the owner of the house, came to know of the notice the next day. He visited several government offices but all were closed for the weekend.
“I was not given any explanation regarding the demolition. Only we were asked to come out of the house. A notice was pasted in the morning. The minor accused and his father are behind bars. His wife is there. Never has this family behaved in the wrong way. Here, people are stabbed on minor issues,” said Khan while talking to reporters.
Khan said that he lived in his ancestral house and he bought the bulldozed house with his own money.
“This is wrong to demolish the rented house. Many people live here on rent. If any incident happens, will you demolish all of these houses? If you give the house on rent today, your house also will be demolished. Why are you punishing the house owner for the crime of the tenant? Why are you demolishing the house of someone else,” he said.
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) took strong exception to the “bulldozer justice”, describing the BJP government’s action of razing the house as illegal, communal and discriminatory. The “pick and choose” approach of the state authorities was in blatant violation of fundamental rights and the principles of natural justice, the PUCL said.
“There are more than 200 houses constructed in the locality, but only the family of the juvenile in conflict with the law was targeted by the authorities to satisfy the power lust of certain miscreants who benefit from such communal tensions,” PUCL president Kavita Srivastava said.
The demolition was also condemned widely on social media. Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Imran Pratapgarhi said that houses owned by members of the Muslim community are demolished on flimsy grounds. It must be stopped.
“In Udaipur, Rajasthan, two children had a fight in which one child was stabbed. The police should file a case and send the accused child to jail. But what kind of justice is it to demolish a Muslim child’s house with a bulldozer because of a fight between children?” he asked.
“Across the country, using government machinery, bulldozers are being used to demolish Muslim homes by looking for excuses. This is a total injustice. Governments that have taken oath on the Constitution are forcibly taking away the roofs from the heads of their citizens. This needs to be stopped immediately,” he said.
