Khargone, Madhya Pradesh: Eight months have passed since Hasina Fakhroo and her family were driven out of their home in Khargone. The spot in Khaskhaswadi, where their pucca house once stood, is now a landfill.
As she walked around the brick-walled house where she and her two sons now live on rent, Hasina (60) could not hold back tears. Her family, she said, has scattered since this house was not big enough for all seven who earlier lived together.
“It has been eight months. No one listened to us. We haven’t got any compensation from the government. We were promised but weren’t given any (accommodation) here. I cannot live here anymore.”
Hasina was rendered homeless after her home — built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in November 2021 — was demolished by the district administration in April as ‘punishment’ for the Ram Navami clashes. But Hasina did not just lose the roof over her head. With the demolition of her home, all of her belongings and material possessions — the proof of her existence — were turned into rubble on 11 April, the day after the clashes.
District administration officials claimed that the house was demolished because it was built on encroached revenue (government) land without prior authorisation.
Hasina now wants nothing more from the government than to return to the area she lived in for about 40 years and get the home that she lost “due to no mistake of (her) own” back.
The family saw a ray of hope when nagar palika (municipality) officials visited them on 16 April, giving ration, collecting thumb impressions and promising rehabilitation. But little seems to have happened since.
“They were giving me a place that was like an ashram. It wouldn’t have fit my whole family. I didn’t want to move anywhere else but have a home as I did before,” Hasina told ThePrint.
The “ashram” she referred to is a multi-storey building in Indira Nagar with 1 BHK flats offered under one of PMAY’s components — Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) — where 35 per cent of houses in a residential project built by the Union government in partnership with states/UTs/private sector are reserved for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS). These reserved houses are meant to rehabilitate those without homes in the district.
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‘They told us they had come to remove dirt’
Asked about the home they lost in the demolition drive, Hasina’s 35-year-old son Mohammad Amjad Fakhroo said it was about 3 km away from Talab Chowk, where communal clashes took place in April. No resident of Khaskhaswadi was involved in the violence, he claimed.
The Hindu-Muslim clashes were triggered by rumours that stones had been pelted from “both sides” during a Ram Navami procession and that the police had reportedly stopped the procession from entering Talab Chowk, a Muslim-dominated locality.
The next day, bulldozers rolled down Khaskhaswadi and nearby areas, razing houses and shops which, district officials suspected, belonged to those involved in the clashes. Of the nearly 20 houses demolished in the area, Hasina’s was the only pucca house consisting two pucca and two semi-pucca rooms.
ThePrint visited the spot where the home once stood and found it had turned into a landfill, with remnants of Hasina’s demolished home still visible.
“If it was built on illegal land, why grant us the scheme-led house in the first place,” asked Amjad. “They told us they had come to remove dirt (gandagi mitaane aaye hain). Look at the land now. It is filled with garbage. If we were living there, we wouldn’t have allowed any littering. What a shame for a government that talks about making India swachh.”
Amjad, one of his brothers, and Hasina are now living in a semi-pucca house with a tin roof in Anand Nagar, far from Khaskhaswadi, for which they pay a monthly rent of Rs 2,000.
“With electricity, water and other amenities, it goes up to Rs 3,000. We had used all our savings in building the last home. We aren’t that financially strong to live on rent now. The officials had promised that our house would be rebuilt but it didn’t happen. Nothing has happened in these past months,” he claimed.
Sitting on the one cot that serves as the only resting place for three in this rented house, Amjad said he is still trying to piece together all documents related to his now-demolished home. These documents, according to him, include a letter from Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan congratulating them on their new house, and bank statements pertaining to the receipt of PMAY instalments to prove it.
We received Rs 2.5 lakh in three instalments as part of the Centre-sponsored scheme and used Rs 1-2 lakh of our own money to extend the house under the PMAY’s Beneficiary-Led ‘Individual House’ Construction or Enhancement (BLC) component, he explained.
In the case of BLC component, the onus lies with the urban local body or nagar palika to verify an applicant’s home ownership, besides income, house map, etc. to ensure whether the applicant is eligible for the scheme.
‘Should have taken offer when she had the chance’
Khargone’s revenue officer (tehsildar) Yogendra Singh Maurya — who ordered the demolition drive — said the houses in question were built on “prime” government land, adding that an applicant is entitled to a home under PMAY only once.
He told ThePrint: “At that time, she got it. Now, it has been destroyed. They can be rehabilitated or compensated by the nagar palika because it is their responsibility. We heard they (Hasina and her family) were given a house in a multi-storey building but they thought they could get a better deal and refused it. Now, she lost that and hasn’t gotten anything else. She should have taken the offer when she was given the chance.”
This was reiterated by Khargone’s Chief Municipal Officer Priyanka Patel who confirmed that she offered Hasina a home at the direction of former district collector Anugraha P. — who was, less than a month after the clashes, replaced with IAS Kumar Purushottam who took charge in May.
Patel had alleged in April that a different plot was granted for the PMAY house approved in Hasina’s name, adding that a team from the municipality had found that no one was living in the house and that it was being used for other purposes. “We did not demolish it. It was done by tehsildar. We were the ones that gave him (Amjad) the benefit. We also offered him a home under AHP houses because they were worried. I had communicated with the lady (Hasina) and she said she didn’t want to move in. No claims like these were conveyed to me,” said Patel.
However, Amjad countered these claims by asking why his family and he would encroach on unauthorised land to build a home when they “had a legalised land to build a home on”.
Asked about the role of the district administration in rehabilitating Hasina’s family, Khargone district collector Purushottam said, “This is nagar palika’s responsibility. I was not there at that time. I heard about it like you from somewhere, but have no idea what the status is. If Amjad wants to express his grievances, he can attend the public hearing held every Tuesday.”
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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