What Big Media missed, avoided or misreported about the Shakur Basti demolition story

On December 15, 2015, The Times of India carried a piece titled, “Delhi demolition: Girl died before shack was crushed, father tells cops”. It states that Mohammad Anwar, the father of the deceased six-month-old baby, recorded a statement with the police asserting that his baby had died several hours before the demolition commenced.

I had met Anwar the previous day and he had told me, in no uncertain terms, that the incident occurred during the commotion caused by the demolition. Which is why the TOI report came as a surprise to me, and Anwar.

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Mohammad Anwar, 27, is illiterate. On my first meeting with him, he tells me that the day after his baby was declared dead, he was escorted to the Punjabi Bagh police station and made to put a thumb impression on a piece of paper. “I asked them to read out the contents of the paper,” he tells me, “but they refused. The police just told me not to do or say anything that’ll put me in more trouble.”

When I read the TOI article carrying his “statement”, I returned to Shakur Basti to ask Anwar about it. He gave me a look of astonishment and repeated the story he had told me earlier. “At around 8 or 9 in the morning [December 12, 2015], three bulldozers came and destroyed our homes. We were given a notice at 4 pm, the previous day. When the demolition started, there was chaos. My wife noticed that a bundle of clothes had landed on my daughter. She brought her to me saying that she suspected the worst. I picked her up and rushed to Mahaveer hospital. She was still breathing. But when the doctor examined her, he told me that my daughter had passed away. I carried the body back to the slum, but the police stopped me from entering. They insisted on taking her to Sanjay Gandhi hospital for better treatment. I refused because my daughter had already breathed her last. But they grabbed me and forced me into the van. They handed over her body only the next day.”

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While the story of Anwar and conflicting details of his daughter’s death made it to the news, the media and politicians have missed out a curious feature of the Shakur Basti demolition. On the railway land, the site of demolition, there lies a mosque and a temple, about 100 metres apart, and separated by a railway line. The bulldozers tore through the mosque, but the temple was kept intact.

The slum dwellings around the temple were demolished, and the temple was left untouched. Mohammad Asif, a student who sometimes leads prayers at the mosque , gives an account of what happened on the day of the demolition: “When the bulldozers came, I pleaded with the police to give me five minutes to save as much of the material as I could, because it comes at a great cost to us. But they didn’t listen. They rained blows on me with their lathis. I only managed to save the Quran and a microphone from the inside. Everything else is destroyed.”

The entire area occupied by the Masjid

The Hanuman temple which lies 100 metres away

Upon the debris of the mosque, mangled remains of loudspeakers and prayer mats lie strewn around. The area on which the mosque stood is about 2,400 sq. ft. It was the only hall of prayer for Muslims, not just in the slums, but the neighbouring areas as well. Mohammad Asif claims that this wasn’t the first time the mosque was demolished. In the last 10 years, the mosque was torn down five times by the railway authorities – once in 2005, then in 2008, 2009, 2013 and now in 2015.

Back in 2005, it was a permanent construction, and after it was torn down, the slum dwellers pooled in their money to erect a temporary wooden structure. But they were all razed to the ground in subsequent clearing drives. When I asked why their mosque was repeatedly torn down, Mohammad Asif was clueless. “How could I know? Only the government or the railway authorities would have the answer.”

Janardhan, 50, has lived in the slum for 35 years. When asked about the Masjid demolition, he laid the blame on the type of construction. “The temple is a permanent structure, made of bricks and mortar. The Masjid was constructed with wood. It’s possible that it was torn down for this reason. If it was built with proper construction materials, it would not have been torn down. The authorities are not allowed to tear down temples and mosques. However, I must tell you that it was a big Masjid. Crowds of people always gathered there to pray.”

The distrust between Hindus and Muslims at Shakur Basti is palpable. However, I couldn’t help get the feeling that some of it was the result of NGO and political vultures provoking the dwellers to assume a hard-line stance. Mohammad Parvej, 34, is an assessment of this cross-section, “The people here are not getting any aid. It’s all going to the Hindu-dominated areas of this slum. The distribution is happening on religious lines. We are getting nothing.”

While he was raving, two cars with relief materials pulled up in the clearing behind us. A crowd rushed to the spot and the authorities were pleading with them to return to their homes, to ensure an equitable distribution, with every family receiving aid. It was clear that there was no religious bias in the distribution of relief materials. Parvej looked sheepish for a moment, but regained his composure. “See, now they’ve sent something. After we pleaded with them for days.” It is difficult to take his responses at face value.

I spoke to Ishwar Singh, Station House Officer at Punjabi Bagh police station and asked him about the Masjid demolition. “First of all, note that it wasn’t a demolition. It was an encroachment removal programme. And, I have no information about any Masjid. During a demolition we don’t really know who’s worshipping what or where. The police was there for law and order only. The people took their things and vacated peacefully.” I chose not to point out that he himself referred to the “encroachment removal programme” as a demolition.

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Over the last three days, Shakur Basti has been teeming with opportunists, who have whipped up feelings of communal distrust among the habitants. Politicians, party men and welfare workers have all vitiated the atmosphere. There were men listing out Kejriwal’s rapid response measures, without me asking for it, on the other hand, there were pamphlets being distributed, demanding the chief minister’s accountability, and there were other welfare workers yelling at the slum dwellers to demand justice.

When Rahul Gandhi arrived at Shakur Basti, he was mobbed by members of the media and he couldn’t spend enough time with the homeless. However, Arman, 22, a resident of the slum, was sceptical of him. “Rahul Gandhi came here and said that this wasn’t his government. Then why did you come here? Why do you raise our hopes?” he asks, with apparent dislike etched on his face. Arvind Kejriwal, on the other hand, seems to be in favour with the slum dwellers. Everybody I spoke to said that he arrived at 2 in the morning, but couldn’t pass through an impenetrable crowd of policemen, media and party workers.

In short, it was a scene of pure chaos, while the victims struggle to survive their ordeal and make it through the biting cold. However, several residents I spoke to were appreciative of Kejriwal’s MLAs and spoke of their willingness to distribute blankets, tents and food, as early as possible.

New accommodation for an indefinite period of time

In all of this, the Railways continue to maintain a general air of indifference. A senior officer in the Northern Railways, who wished to remain unnamed, maintained that the Railways are not to blame. “First of all, it is our land. Secondly, the child died before the clearing began at 12 pm. The truth is that they had left their child on her own, and she suffocated when some clothes fell on her. The father keeps changing his story. See, today his statement confirms that the child died before we got there. Even the police report corroborates it.”

When I ask about the future of the slum dwellers, he shrugged his shoulders. “Every time we clear the land, they build tents and squat there. These people are migratory labour brought in to work at the cement siding. As long as there’s work, they will remain there.”

I tried contacting Arun Arora, divisional railway manager, Northern Railways, several times to ask him about the demolition of the Masjid. He remained unavailable for comment. When I called Neeraj Sharma, chief public relations officer, Northern Railways, he maintained that he wasn’t informed about the presence of any Masjid in the area.

While the Railways maintain that the “clearing” work began at 12 pm, all the slum dwellers confirmed to me that it started early in the morning at around 8 or 9 am. For now, the Railways has conveniently pinned the blame on parental negligence, and TOI has helped their case by publishing the police report without checking facts with Mohammad Anwar. (The paper even got baby Rookia, pronounced row-qaiyya, Khatoon’s name wrong. Her name is reported as Ruksiya.)

The miscarriage of justice has been bolstered by the political blame game, and exploitation by the police of an illiterate man in order to shift culpability.

The demolition of the Masjid is another facet of the misfortune, one which has gone unreported. However, Mohammad Asif talked about his plans to reconstruct the mosque as soon as he receives some help in terms of money and materials. The poor in India are usually the first in line to lose their homes. The industrious manner in which they are subject to wanton displacement exposes an inhumane societal structure that ensures the wounded never get up. It is like an invisible fiendish conspiracy to discover their raw spot and go after it with relish. When their backs are up against the wall, someone inevitably always turns up, wondering how that wall was left standing.

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