The Wire (Haldwani) — Residents across Banbhoolpura region of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand are holding candlelight marches, sit-ins, and collective prayers to resist a High Court order authorizing the demolition of over 4,500 homes, ostensibly to make room for a railway. Behind this legal battle, some critics believe there lay political motives aimed at sweeping away the Muslim minority.

On December 20, the Uttarakhand High Court ordered the removal of settlements in the Banbhoolpura region of the state. The court stated that the railway could even “use the forces to any extent” utilizing paramilitary troops. Public notice was issued ten days later by the North Eastern Railway (NER) regional manager, advising residents to vacate the contested area of land within a week or face the consequences.

The High Court order came against the backdrop of a longstanding legal tussle over the ownership of the land, which is home to a predominantly working-class Muslim population.

A petition opposing the demolition drive was taken up yesterday by the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court temporarily suspended the High Court decision, which would have thrown thousands of families out into the streets at the height of winter. “There cannot be uprooting of 50,000 people overnight… It’s a human issue. Some workable solution needs to be found,” the Supreme Court ruled. It also questioned the High Court’s suggestion that paramilitary forces be used to clear out the residents.

The Supreme Court indicated that it will revisit the case next month.

The local residents who are fighting eviction have been arguing that they are not “encroachers,” but rather that the area is nazul land, referring to non-agricultural land owned by the government which can be leased to families and, in some cases, provided as freehold. Moreover, the applicants’ petition to the Supreme Court stated that “the railway has no evidence to claim this land as its own and the parties have not substantiated their claims of ownership.” Additionally, the residents’ petition claims that the High Court order did not take into account that several residents have sale deeds and copies of leases which establish them as the legal occupiers.

A Tangled Legal Web

The issue of the alleged encroachment on the Banbhoolpura land first arose in 2007 when the NER claimed 29 acres of land near the Haldwani city railway station. In an affidavit filed that year, the NER informed the Uttarakhand High Court that it had cleared “encroachers” from 10 of the 29 acres of land, and it appealed to the court to issue an order directing the state authorities to help it take control of the remaining 19 acres.

The issue subsided for some years and no further demolition was carried out. But in 2013, the matter resurfaced when a man named Ravi Shankar Joshi filed a public interest suit in the High Court asking for an investigation into the collapse of a bridge that had been constructed in 2003 on the Gaula River.

On the basis of this suit, a commissioner was appointed by the court to investigate the bridge collapse. Two years later the commissioner filed a report stating that illegal mining was taking place on the banks of the Gaula, conducted by some of those living in the area.

Following this report, the High Court summoned the representatives of the NER, who once again claimed that 29 acres of the land had been encroached upon. In 2016, the High Court issued an interim order calling for an anti-encroachment drive.

However, the state government claimed that it did not have the means to carry out the order. Moreover, the state government pointed out that there was no demarcation of railway property, and therefore it was difficult to determine which homes represented encroachments and which did not.

In January 2017, the High Court once again directed the state government to clear alleged encroachments. Representatives of residents took the matter to the Supreme Court, noting that it was not even clear that the NER owned the land in question, considering that the area had been occupied and had had permanent structures built upon it since before independence in 1947.

Out of this dispute, it was decided to appoint an estate officer to ascertain the legal titles of the land, issue notices to all the individual residents, and to hear their objections to the eviction.

However, this estate officer–allegedly without referring to any sources–stated that the land belonged to the NER and that the occupants were illegal encroachers who must be removed.

Based on his report, fresh eviction notices were issued to the people of Banbhoolpura. Now, however, these notices were sent to people residing on 78 acres of land, rather than the 29 acres which the NER had twice claimed ownership of in court.

No substantive documentary evidence of ownership of either the 29 acres or the later claim of 78 acres has ever been produced by the NER.

“No One Listens to Us”

Mohammad Yusuf, a lawyer in the district, notes that the High Court order was issued despite pending appeals by several residents: “This case is being treated as a trial despite the fact that the appeals are pending. People have bought the land through auctions, and several people have received their land pattas (deeds). Freeholds were done and sale deeds were also registered. House tax is being paid by residents here, and is being taken by local authorities.”

Aside from private homes, seventeen schools and sixteen places of worship also fall into the area threaten with demolition.

“This area has homes, temples, and mosques, community centers, and water tanks,” explains Mohammed Akhlaq, a resident of the area. “Some of us have ownership papers. Our appeals are pending in the lower courts. But despite all this, the High Court made such a big decision without giving us the space to provide facts. Only one week’s notice was served to us in a matter in which over 50,000 people will be affected and we did not receive a chance to be fairly heard.”

Akhlaq added: “No one listens to us. When administrative officials come and meet us, they do so only to tell us that we will have to leave this area and to ask us to support the decision, or else our houses will be bulldozed.”

“This is Politically Motivated”

Residents of the area, as well as their political representatives, claim that the demolition drive is, in fact, politically motivated, aimed at changing the demography of the region to benefit the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Several ordinary residents spoke to us on condition of anonymity.

A worker who has lived in the area for the past five decades complained, “Where will we go? We are daily wagers and poor. If we are evicted, we will be without shelter. Already, we are dying due to unemployment and starvation. Now the railways are kicking us in the gut. This land does not belong to the railways. This drive is an attempt to eliminate us. We believe this is a political strategy to remove Muslims and change the demography of the area.”

The residents point out that the eviction order is similar to other demolition drives across the nation that have unfairly targeted the minority Muslim population.

A woman in her late 90s said, “We have given up everything to make our homes and now we are being targeted as Muslims. Why were we allowed to build our homes here in the first place? Our homes were built from scratch, with our sweat and blood. These homes have deeds. The BJP has never won from this area, so this is being done to trouble Muslims.”

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat posted an open letter on the issue on his Facebook feed, questioning the passive stance of incumbent chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, who is a BJP politician:

I expect you to look at this entire episode as a humanitarian duty as chief minister of the state and to solve it. Interact with the people and also discuss it with the railway…  I urge you to look at this matter from a humanitarian perspective and to intervene and assure people that their houses won’t be demolished… The responsibility for a solution is in your hands, so I appeal to you publicly.

Sumit Hridayesh, an Indian National Congress party representative in the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, is more direct in his criticism: “The BJP government in the state has categorically failed to provide support to the poor. The people living there have pattas, leases, and sale deeds. There are schools, hospitals, and residences dating back more than a hundred years. There are temples and there are mosques. This is a huge travesty of justice, and this injustice is being served by the government of Uttarakhand and Chief Minister Dhami.”

This article was originally published in The Wire. Edits for style and content.

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