Residents breathe easy as decade-long nightmare ends

Till six days back such scenes were a rarity for a decade in Ward 35 of Kasarwadi, a suburb which falls under the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation limits. The road was virtually a “no-entry zone” for the residents.

Today the air of freedom and a sense of euphoria which is palpable among the 200 families living in the area stems from the fact their decade-long nightmare finally came to an end on Monday when the slum-dwellers who had spun a web of miseries around them were ejected lock, stock and barrel.

The action ordered by Municipal Commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi also put back their ordeal of knocking the doors of politicians and the PCMC officials and even getting locked in legal wrangles.

The demolition of hutments, bordering the defence land at Kasarwadi, was carried out on the directives issued by Pardeshi last week at a meeting with members of the Citizen’s Forum, Kasarwadi.

Called Gangvavasti, the slum had acquired much notoriety in recent times, many residents calling it a home for nefarious activities. The slum-dwellers had held almost total control of the land, a stretch which was an approach road for a thousand residents.

“The slum-dwellers most of the time ate and slept on the approach road, indulged in drunken quarrels that went well past midnight. Anyone who objected to their behaviour was abused in filthy language and even beaten up,” says S Gaikwad, who lives in a nearby chawl.

“I thought twice before using the road in the day time and in the evenings for days on end I never stepped out of my house,” says Shehnaz Shaikh.

Her husband Aziz Shaikh, who had been in the forefront of the crusade, points out that, “The men and women from the slum always quarrelled among themselves in a state of high stupor and never allowed the nearby residents a peace of mind.” He adds: “Whenever a resident went to lodge a complaint with the police, the slum women would stomp the police chowkie and make all kinds of false allegations. This deterred the residents from lodging a complaint against the trouble-makers.”Another resident Bajal De Silva alleges that all sorts of illegal activities were on at the slum. “Several teenagers in the suburb landed in bad company. The sickening fact was that the squatters carried their dirty business right on the approach road.”Sangeeta Palaskar, whose family was targeted a number of times, is scathing in her attack against the politicians and the PCMC officials. “The elected representatives and other politicians never bothered themselves despite repeated pleas. The PCMC did demolish the huts twice. Butthe slum-dwellers regrouped in a few days at the same place.”When contacted, the Municipal Commissioner said the demolition of the slum took time since slum-dwellers had been occupying the place for nearly two decades. “They have now been provided open plots at Sector 22 in Pradhikaran,” he said adding that the shifting has been done as per the Supreme Court orders which prevents demolition of slums occupying the land before 1995.