Former Delhi chief minister Atishi was removed from the anti-demolition protest site in the Kalkaji area Tuesday after the police claimed that she was asking people not to vacate the houses at Bhoomiheen Camp. The Delhi High Court had earlier dismissed petitions by the slum dwellers against the impending eviction and demolition.
Taking to X, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Atishi posted, “I have been detained at Baba Haridas Nagar police station (Jharoda Kalan), 43km from Kalkaji.”
However, Hemant Tiwari, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), South-East, said, “She (Atishi) has not been detained. She has been removed from the spot under section 65 of the Delhi Police Act.”
The police said they were checking the situation at the site in view of the demolition to be carried out on Wednesday, when Atishi reached the Bhoomiheen Camp and instigated people, asking them not to vacate. After repeated reminders not to do so, officers had to remove her from the location to avoid unnecessary commotion, they said.
On Friday, while deciding pleas by 417 residents of Bhoomiheen Camp in Kalkaji seeking the court’s protection from demolition of their settlements and rehabilitation, the Delhi High Court said, “Encroachers cannot claim the right to continue occupying public land pending the resolution of their rehabilitation claims under the applicable policy, as this would unduly impede public projects.”
Reasoning that the right to seek rehabilitation, as it is, is not an absolute constitutional entitlement “available to encroachers such as themselves”, Justice Dharmesh Sharma added that “determination of eligibility for rehabilitation is a separate process from the removal of encroachers from public land.” Of the over 400-odd petitioners, the high court granted some relief to around 30.
The nearly three-decades-old slum cluster was home to migrants from UP, Bihar and West Bengal, among others. The petitioners first moved the court in 2023, claiming that the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), in “an arbitrary and illegal manner, proposed to demolish their jhuggi-jhopdis”.
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On June 2, minutes before petitions to stay demolition of homes at the slum in Southeast Delhi’s Govindpuri were heard by a vacation bench of the high court, the civic authorities had already started razing down the hutments.
