‘They treated us like dogs’: Thanisandra residents spend night in cold as bulldozers raze hopes

Bengaluru: Around 40 families, rendered homeless after the Bangalore Development Authority’s (BDA) demolition drive in Thanisandra, are spending nights in the biting January cold, uncertain of where to go next.

Though the BDA has arranged temporary shelters and food, residents, most of them tenants and lower-income families, say the relief is inadequate and the manner of the eviction inhumane.

“They came at 6 am on Thursday. We begged them to give us just one hour to move our belongings, but they treated us like dogs,” said a resident who had lived in the area for nearly a decade. “They dragged women and sleeping children out of their beds. Where is the humanity?”

Nasir Ahmed, a tenant whose home was among the first to be demolished, said officials showed no empathy. “They came and broke the house down. We are on the road now. No minister has come to help. They come only when they want votes. There are small children here, even children with disabilities. Where should we go? Show us a path,” he asked, gesturing at the rubble.

He said the demolition has triggered a health crisis as well. “Our landlord, who has lived here for 30 years, suffered a mild heart attack out of shock. We have lived here for five years. There was no prior notice, no safety arrangements. Now they talk about food, but who will give us a roof? They have even sealed our wells and we don’t have water to wash our children.”

Munir Ahmed, a driver, said he bought his house just three months ago for Rs 45 lakh. “I sold my daughter’s wedding jewellery and took loans. I checked the encumbrance certificate for 20 years, but there was no mention of the BDA. I pay all my taxes. If they touch my house again, my family will have no option but to die inside it,” he said.

Another resident, Samuel Raj, whose family has held the land since 1986, questioned the government’s role. “If this was BDA land, why did the sub-registrar allow the sale? Why did the BBMP collect tax and KEB give power connections?”

By Friday afternoon, the area resembled a war zone, with broken bricks, twisted steel, school bags, refrigerators and mattresses strewn across the mud.

For tenants, the crisis is compounded by the loss of advance deposits, now unlikely to be refunded.

While the BDA maintains it is acting within the law, for Thanisandra’s residents, the law has arrived as a wrecking ball.

Debris lies scattered as a man salvages belongings during the second day of the BDA’s encroachment removal drive at Thanisandra in Bengaluru on Friday.