Not even big cat can move them

But not while Yadav and his penniless friends — they couldn’t afford a hut in Malad so they made a home in the forest — have a haven in politicians and failed rehabilitation plans.

‘‘We were told last year that the government would relocate us to Kandivli in June, but that has not happened,’’ says Yadav. ‘‘So we are still in the jungle.’’ They aren’t particularly unhappy. ‘‘We have electricity and we get our water supply from a broken BMC water pipe,’’ grins Arvind Kumar Tiwari (22). The spate of leopard killings doesn’t disturb them either. ‘‘Yes, the cats come till here. In fact, just 10 days ago a leopard pawed a man. But what can we do? We have no other place to go,’’ says Yadav.

They won’t accept the proposed relocation to Kalyan, where the Bombay HC said 12,000 families should be moved. They have strong backing. ‘‘I oppose moving (them) to Kalyan,’’ says former petroleum minister Ram Naik.

And so vegetable vendor Phagu Goud (21) says: ‘‘We can tackle the wagh (leopard), but we won’t go to Kalyan.’’

Advocate Anil Singh, who represented the slum-dwellers in 2002, says relocation is easier said than done. ‘‘Promising flats to several thousand families will take time,’’ reasons Singh. Meanwhile, Mulund MLA Sardar Tara Singh is thinking of ‘‘extreme measures’’(he’s fuzzy about what those might be, changing ‘‘shoot them’’ to ‘‘transfer them’’) to get rid of leopards.