Delhi:
Overnight rain and winter chill is driving the homeless in the national capital to despair. In the Jama Masjid area, this despair is coupled with fear. The area, which was home to thousands of poor pavement dwellers, is deserted. This is because the homeless allege that the police beat them with lathis to evict them. They even set fire to their possessions.
Speaking on condition of anonymity one homesless person said: "(The police threw) My jacket with my ration card, and smart card documents was thrown into the fire. Where do I go? If I were to take a place on rent, they demand an ID card.'' Adds another, "They (police) burn all our clothes, even those that were hanging out to dry. They don't spare even the food we cook.''
Currently there are four temporary night shelters in the area. Though they offer some protection, they are far from adequate to address the needs of the homeless. Noted social activist Harsh Mander, whose NGO Aman Biradari runs a night shelter for women and for children, estimates that there are nearly 10,000 homeless people in the Jama Masjid area. Says Mander, "There are few centers but they can only take care of two to three hundred people but they are thousands here and they should be allowed to sleep in public. The police are being very brutal here, they ask them to leave and burn their belongings...They are burning them night after night.''
The police however deny the use of force, saying they only encourage homeless people to use night shelters. Says a policeman, who did not give his name: "We have received instructions from the government. All the PCR vans and the beat and the division staff who are on patrol duty are asked to take the homeless and shelterless people to the night shelters.''
The other problem for the homeless is that they have no voting rights. This, in effect denies them a way to be heard by public officials and politicians. Says Shoaib Iqbal, MLA from the Matia Mahal constituency in the Jama Masjid area: "We will raise this issue in the coming Assembly session. We will demand the Government frame a more sensitive policy for the homeless."