Navi Mumbai’s unoccupied buildings turn into sex dens

Though none of the flats in Hemraj Building are occupied, the obscene graffiti on the walls indicates they are certainly not unused. Nobody stops you as you take a stroll through the building. While most of the flats are not locked, some have clearly been broken in. Liquor bottles, empty cigarette packets and wrappers of condoms tell previousnight’s tales. Walls are plastered with nude pictures and obscene messages. Employees of a hotel on the ground floor confirm that the building has become a favourite haunt for lonely couples because it is located in an isolated corner. “The two guards can’t deter them (the couples). They climb walls to gain entry. While students come during day time, with the nightfall regulars start coming in,” says a waiter requesting anonymity. “I have to work here. Don’t want to get into trouble,” he adds.

Hemraj building’s locational advantage may have made it a favourite with those looking for a bit of privacy, but there is no shortage of such hideouts in Belapur, Kharghar and Nerul – three main nodes of Navi Mumbai that together account for a major part of the excess housing stock.

A walk down a few blocks from Belapur station would stun any visitor as an array of designer architecture hits the eye — Maruti Towers, Punit Towers, Arneja Towers, Casablanca. The scene repeats itself outside Nerul and Khargharstations. But a closer look reveals the true story – empty parking lots, rusting escalators, locked doors and closed windows.

Just outside Kharghar is an under-construction building without so much as a single guard. In one corner on the ground floor sit a group of drug-addicts smoking pot. In another corner are two students busy getting intimate. While the students refuse to speak, a middle-aged couple agrees after much persuasion. “She works in my office at Belapur and we come here often in the lunch break as it a quiet place where no one will disturb us,” says the man and adds that on a clear day there are more couples around.

But residents are not willing to believe that all these visitors are innocent lovers. “A woman can’t possibly fall in love with a different man every evening, can she?” asks a resident. Taraben Shah (56), a resident of Arneja Towers, takes her time checking this reporter’s identity card before launching a tirade against the “couples who have made the neighbourhood theiradda. “Things have improved since we got the new security. A few months back I had come upon a couple in a compromising position in the corridor!” she says.

There are several multi-storeyed buildings in this part of Belapur that were finished just as the recession hit the construction industry. Prices have plummeted continuously after that. “There are no buyers in the market.

Builders are fast losing interest. There is a very large excess housing stock which can be misused by anti-social elements,” says a real estate developer. “The recession in the real estate market couldn’t have come at a worse time for Navi Mumbai. The townships were still being developed when the demand suddenly dried up,” admits real estate consultant Ashwin Mehta of the Mehta Realtore. “Where is the money to invest in any elaborate security?” he asks.

Jaysinghrao Patil, who is in charge of the Turbhe police station under whose jurisdiction most of the vacant buildings fall, however does not see any connection betweenvacant buildings and the rising crime graph. “To a certain degree petty theft and sexual crimes may be getting a fillip, but we don’t see the vacancy connected to rise in crime in any way,” he says. As far as trespassing is concerned, he points out that it’s builders’ responsibility.