Top Delhi BJP leaders met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the Union Home Ministry headquarters in Delhi today, hours after a controversial demolition drive in violence-hit Jahangirpuri that was halted by the Supreme Court.
Amit Shah met with the Delhi leaders for an hour. Those in the meeting were Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta, MP Ramesh Bidhuri, MLA Ram Bir Bidhuri and leader Maninder Singh Sirsa.
The leaders didn't disclose anything on the talks. "It was a routine meeting," said Mr Sirsa.
Adesh Gupta had written to North Delhi Municipal Corporation Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh calling for an anti-encroachment drive in the area where communal clashes erupted on Saturday during a Hanuman Jayanti procession.
Mr Gupta asked the civic body to identify illegal constructions by "rioters" and demolish them.
The demolition teams arrived at Jahangirpuri in the morning along with hundreds of policemen. Shortly after, a petition before the Supreme Court called the drive illegal.
The Supreme Court will tomorrow hear the petition, which flags the worrying trend seen in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and now Delhi, of communal clashes followed by anti-encroachment drives targeting one community.
A bench led by Chief Justice NV Ramana agreed to an "urgent hearing" and paused the Jahangirpuri demolition until then.
But the civic body's bulldozers didn't stop after the Supreme Court order. Twenty shops were razed, besides a wall and gate of the mosque at the centre of Saturday's violence, before the civic teams finally stopped on a second intervention by the Chief Justice.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation, in a statement this evening, said the anti-encroachment drive was an attempt to clear pedestrian walkways and roads to ease the traffic and pedestrian movement. "Such encroachment removal drives on public roads is done regularly in all wards /Zones by North DMC with/without notice under section 321/322/323/325 of the MCD Act, 1957 with prior intimation to local police," the statement read.
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