New Delhi: House of Muslim who saved Uttarakhand workers demolished
Wakeel Hasan was among the "rat-men" who dug up the earth by hand last November to reach workers trapped in a tunnel under construction. Despite praise and accolades, his home was bulldozed. According to the authorities, it was built illegally on government land, but Hasan had been forced to pay bribes to local officials in the past.
New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) – From national hero to homeless is the sad tale of Wakeel Hasan, one of the "rat-miners" who in November rescued 41 workers trapped in a tunnel under construction in India’s Himalayan region.
His house in Khajuri Khas, a densely populated neighbourhood in New Delhi, was demolished last week. The next day, he was seen rummaging through the rubble looking for the textbooks of his 15-year-old daughter, Aliza.
“I can’t even look at this demolished home and not cry,” Hasan told Al Jazeera.
The team of miners had been called to the northern state of Uttarakhand after all other rescue attempts by professional rescuers had failed.
"Rat-hole mining" is an expression used in India to refer to the manual extraction of coal, a practice that is officially banned, but one that still employs many people, including women and children, from disadvantaged backgrounds.
After the feat, Hasan and the rest of the team received several national accolades, including praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In just three months, however, his life was turned upside down. He was shopping when Aliza called him to tell him they wanted to tear down their house.
Together with Azeem, her older brother, she tried to stop the police from entering the house, without success.
“I was slapped by the female police personnel and Azeem was pushed around, slapped and verbally abused. We were then dragged out of the house and thrown into a police car,” Aliza told Al Jazeera.
By the time their father arrived home, it was too late; before he could intervene, bulldozers from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the government agency responsible for planning and developing infrastructure projects in the capital, had already begun razing the house.
According to the DDA, the house was built illegally on land owned by the government. For the "rat-man", who had the documents to prove that the house was his property, this is a lie.
“They claim the act was part of a demolition drive of illegal properties, yet they only demolished one property: mine,” he said. He and his wife, Shabana, bought the house in 2013 for 3.3 million rupees (US$ 39,800).
“I don’t understand why I was targeted,” wonders Hasan, a Muslim in a predominantly Hindu country. “Was it because I am from a minority community?”
The DDA and the New Delhi police answer to the central government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while the capital is governed by another party.
According to activist Sucheta De, the demolition was illegal and criminal. “If we see the past instances of demolitions, it looks targeted, anti-poor and anti-minority,” she noted.
Since the BJP came to power in 2014, anti-Muslim propaganda has increased. In Delhi, they represent up 12 per cent of its population of 30 million.
Many of them live in "irregular" neighbourhoods. Even if residents have ownership papers, the creation of informal settlements, unregulated by the law, gives local officials the power to decide what to tear down and what to spare.
“A large section of the population in Delhi is always under the threat of demolition,” De explained.
According to Amnesty International, 128 Muslim properties were demolished between April and June 2022 alone, and more than 600 people were left homeless or without livelihoods as a result.
Often, the only way to avoid the problem is by paying bribes, as is often the case in Khajuri Khas, Hasan said. In 2016 he was forced to pay authorities about US$ 9,500 to prevent bulldozers from razing everything.
Unable to pay any more during last week's demolition, Hasan tried to call all the local politicians he knew, but to no avail.
“I contacted everyone, but they did not return my calls. Manoj Tiwari had felicitated me and even came to my residence. I called him multiple times. Even after a day of the demolition, he has not returned my calls,” Hasan said. Tiwari represents the local constituency for the BJP.
Hasan seems determined to face a long battle in court. “I am not very hopeful but we won’t move an inch until we are given our house back,” he said, as his family ate on a bed on the side of the road, under a tarpaulin donated by neighbours.
Meanwhile, all the trophies he received after the rescue in Uttarakhand now lie under the rubble.
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29/11/2023 18:03
12/07/2021 16:01
