Sitting on a plastic chair near the ruins of his shop, Ganesh Gupta says, “I thought they are here only to raze illegal shops. I was shocked to know they would demolish my shop too”.
Ganesh Gupta’s juice shop stood a small distance away from Rahima’s shop in the Jahangirpuri’s C block. His shop was also demolished in the anti-encroachment drive, carried by Northeast Delhi Municipal Corporation on April 20, 2022. The municipal body initiated the anti-encroachment drive following comments made from the Delhi BJP Chief Aadesh Gupta, who claimed that people involved in Hanuman Jayanti violence resided in illegally-built structures.
But when we went to the area and talked to Ganesh Gupta, he said that neither he nor anyone in his family had been accused of rioting, and that his shop was also built on the land allotted by DDA.
They continued demolishing despite the order by the Supreme Court to stop it forthwith.
Ganesh Kumar Gupta
Ganesh says, his father had set up this shop in the 1970s. But after the father’s death, he took over the reins. He claims that in the past, whenever MCD conducted inspections and issued notices, he always presented them with his paperwork and they were always satisfied.
But this time, 54-year-old Ganesh Gupta kept pleading and shouting that at least look at the papers once. He kept pleading before officials to give him some time but they continued with demolition. “This is brazen,” he shouted at the top of his voice saying that his father ran this shop and he also has legal papers. But without hearing a word, the municipal body dismantled his juice shop which was his only source of making ends meet.
Ganesh has resided in Jahangirpuri’s C block since 1977 and had never seen anything like this. Pointing out to a man named Akbar, Ganesh told that NDMC also destroyed his business even though he had his seller certificate. According to him, various licensed businesses were destroyed that day without justification.
Ganesh says that the people living in the area had no enmity with each other as they have been living there peacefully all these years without any tension. Whatever happened was very unfortunate and the poor and innocents suffered unjustly. Some outsiders committed the violence and went away, but we are being made to face a double misery, he adds.
When Miles2Smile went to see the area, he was struggling to make ends meet and feeling helpless about how he was going to get back on his feet financially after the massive loss.
We helped him out in buying a new refrigerator by giving him one lakh rupees, raised through a fundraiser for restoring his shop.
When Ganesh finally got back on his feet again, he felt a sense of relief.
