Mangaluru: Around midnight on May 13, more than 150 personnel from the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation, along with local police, arrived at the residence of Mateen Patel in the city’s Naregaon area. Patel is the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) corporator.
The city known as Aurangabad was renamed Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in 2023.
The corporation had sought clarification from Patel two days earlier, on the structure that his father had built in the early 1990s. Even before the deadline had passed, the authorities razed his 2,100-square-foot structure.
The house, ownership of which was shared between Patel and his brother Mohsin, was brought down, along with six shop units built in the structure. Patel, according to his family, was allegedly “punished” for giving shelter to Nida Khan, a young tele-caller who came in the eye of the storm for her alleged role in Nashik’s much-publicised “TCS case”. Twenty-six-year-old Khan, who is in her first trimester of pregnancy, was arrested from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar on May 8.
On Khan’s arrest, Patel too was dragged into the case. Although booked under bailable sections, Patel has since gone missing. Patel’s lawyer Abhaysinh Bhosle says the TCS case, since the very start, was politically motivated and that with the AIMIM corporator’s name now involved, the police could further complicate the case.
When the Patel family received the demolition notice, they had promptly moved the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court. The court, however, did not grant a stay. The corporation authorities had committed before the court that they would not take any adverse steps until May 18. But within hours, the house was demolished.
‘Mentioned only his name’
“The house ownership is both in Mateen bhai‘s and my name. But the notice mentioned only his name,” Mohsin points out. “It is not that the corporation didn’t have complete details of the legal papers. I lost my house just for being Mateen’s brother,” Mohsin added.
Mohsin says the demolition was not “regular work” for the authorities. “They began surrounding our house around 2 am. They made it look like some big criminal is hiding in this place. We have very young kids in the house, very old people too. The family was barely given any time to even gather the belongings,” a family member alleged.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
