2024-08-05 23:04:17
Nuh: People who lost their shops in the demolition after the riots in Haryana’s Nuh district last year are still trying to get their lives back on track. Some are running bike parking on the footpath, while others are running diagnostic centres in their broken basements. Read in this report how the riots and demolitions have affected the lives of the people of Nuh.
It was a dark day in Mohammad Taleem’s life when his photocopy shop was demolished after the Nuh riots. Till July 2023, he used to run his house from this shop. Now he runs a bike parking on the footpath and charges Rs 10 for parking a bike. On a good day, his earnings go up to Rs 300, which is a fourth of his earnings from his photocopy shop. Taleem’s parking is in front of the debris of shops near Shaheed Hassan Khan Mewati Government College and Hospital that were demolished after the Nuh riots on July 31 a year ago. Taleem’s shop was also one of these shops. Taleem told that this parking space is my only means of survival. We are seven brothers and each of us had a shop in this complex, which was demolished. We lost our livelihood and now we are trying to stand on our feet with whatever resources are left.
Bulldozer was run on Arif Khan’s shop
A few metres from Taleem’s shop, Arif Khan (36) has opened a diagnostic centre in the basement of his demolished shop. A portion of the basement ceiling is broken and covered with tin sheets. It is a makeshift arrangement but he is hopeful that he will be able to get things back on track. Since a hospital is next door, he hopes it will bring enough customers to his centre. “It has been almost three months since I decided to convert this semi-demolished place into a diagnostic centre. This is for our survival. I have just put up a board outside and made some seating arrangements,” Khan said. Khan has no plans to open a lab elsewhere. “We have the ownership documents of this land, which confirm our legal right to go ahead with this diagnostic centre,” he said.
Action was also taken at Aas Mohammad’s house
Right next to the cluster of shops is the home of Aas Mohammad. A portion of his one-story house was bulldozed last year. Aas and his brother sought help from a nonprofit to rebuild two rooms for their families, but his two sons had to find other means of livelihood. Mohammad Hasim ran a grocery store in Nalhar, while another son, Mohammad Qasim, set up a stall nearby selling tea and corn. Aas said the grocery store was demolished after communal violence and the police no longer allow them to park their carts.
Sons sometimes get work, sometimes not
My sons sometimes find work, sometimes not. They now depend on loading and unloading packages for an e-commerce firm. They earn Rs 400 per day. This job requires them to travel to a neighbouring village, which is much less convenient than their previous shops located near our home, Aas said. Preparing for his daughter’s wedding on August 11, Aas said his family does not have the regular income to host the kind of ceremony they had once hoped for.
The bulldozer drive lasted from 3 to 6 August
Let us tell you that about 350 structures were demolished in a four-day operation in Nuh from August 3 to August 6, 2023. These included slums, hotels and shops. The official reason for this was stated to be the removal of encroachment and illegal construction. But several officials, including Nuh police spokesperson Krishan Kumar and sub-divisional magistrate Ashwani Kumar, had said that the properties were linked to rioters or those who pelted stones from their rooftops. The then Home Minister Anil Vij had even said that bulldozers were part of the treatment. By August 7, the demolitions were stopped after the Punjab and Haryana High Court took suo motu cognizance of the reports and asked whether the action was an act of ethnic cleansing.