By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Muzaffarnagar: The district administration, with the help of local police, has forcibly evicted the victims of Muzaffarnagar riots from a relief camp in Malakpur village in neighbouring Shamli district and dismantled the huts and shanties that poor Muslims had built in last two years from donations.
Most of residents of these camps shelter poor Muslims from different villages of Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, who ran for their lives as they felt threatened when the Muzaffarnagar-Shamli riots began on September 7-8, 2013. The demolition exercise took place on Saturday.
There are still eight relief camps in Shamli district, six of which are on the forest land.
However, as these people do not belong to the eight villages where actual riots had occurred then in 2013, the Uttar Pradesh government does not recognise them as victims of riots, and hence neither were they given any compensation nor were there any rehabilitation schemes for them. The state government maintains that they should go back to their villages, but these poor Muslims are still too scared to return.
Some of these camps are located in Malakpur, Khurgan, Sunethi 1-2, Barnavi and Mansura. Camp dwellers are surviving in temporary shelters, however, local administration constantly threaten the victims of the riots to vacate camps.
On Saturday morning, SDM Kairana, CO, SO and DFO with a large number of PAC jawans and 2 JCB machines reached Malakpur and Khuurgan camp. Around 11 am as most of the men from these camps were outside, working as daily wage labourers, only women and children are generally present in the camps. Hapless women and children both kept crying but forces followed the ‘order of the authority’ and completely demolished the temporary shelters from the surface.
In Malakpur and Khurgan camps there were around 90 families from different villages like Soram, Loom Kakda, Sirsali, Lisarh, Kharar, Kirthal, Chaprolli, Mahadevpura, Daha, Ailum, Kaserva and Soup.
“Poor settlers who were somehow restarting their lives have once again been rendered homeless and they have lost even their daily use items and food grain. They are once again looking to shift to some newer but safer locations,” said Akram Akhtar, a resident of Kandla district in UP, who has been working for rehabilitation of riot victims under the banner of Muzaffarnagar Adhikar Jan Manch (MAJMA) and is its Project Coordinator.
Following is the detail of families who moved to several places:
As many as 20 families went to Moie village, Panipat Road, Kairana; 15 families went to Kairana; five to Jadana, Kandhla; seven to Kheri Karmu; 10 families settled in Malakpur village.
“About 20 families still remain in Malakpur camp because they don’t have any relatives and resources to take shelter in the nearby camps,” Akhtar further informed. Police has now also filed a case of illegal encroachment against them and the the fear of arrest now looms on them.
The situation of all these 90 families is in pathetic. These people neither have basic food items to feed their children nor proper clothes to cover them.