By Masrat Nabi
Delhi: Hamida Begum, 74, has lived in Batla House in southeast Delhi, a predominantly Muslim area near Jamia Millia Islamia University, for more than six decades.
She shares her home on Muradi Road in khasra 279—a unique identification number assigned to a plot of land—with her daughter Saima Begum and her husband, and their children, in the house she claimed her late husband built in the 1960s.
On 22 and 26 May , the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the irrigation and water resources department of Uttar Pradesh (IDUP) issued demolition notices for plots in khasras 277 and 279. The IDUP claims certain plots lie within the historical Yamuna floodplain and are legally theirs.
According to media reports, at least 52 homes in khasra 279 and over 100 in khasra 277 were marked with a red cross or had notices pasted on residents’ doors.The notices followed a 7 May Supreme Court order directing the removal of encroachments in the two khasras.
Begum’s house was among those marked for demolition. “I couldn’t understand, in one moment they ended everything,” she said.
“I have been living in this house for more than 60 years,” she said. “This house was built by my husband, Qamal Islam. I became a wife here, a daughter-in-law, then a mother, and now a mother-in-law. Every wall has memories. This house is my entire world.”
Begum’s despair is echoed across Batla House, where families who have lived for decades now find their homes suddenly branded as “encroachments”.
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.
