A 58-year-old resident of Elango Street in Govindasamy Nagar immolated himself on Sunday in protest, after the Tamil Nadu government allegedly hastened an ongoing eviction drive.
G. Kannaiyan, who suffered over 90% burns, according to his family, has been admitted to the Government Kilpauk Medical College Hospital. Alleging that the eviction was being done in violation of human rights, K. Suresh, Mr. Kannaiyan’s son, demanded action against the officials concerned and appealed to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to take suo motu cognisance of the issue.
While the government maintained that the eviction was being done as per the order of the Supreme Court in a case filed by an individual to remove the encroachments, the residents alleged that successive governments failed to plead their case properly. They accused the government of expediting the demolition drive after coming to know that they were planning to approach the Supreme Court on Monday with the help of an NGO.
“They began the demolition more than a week ago. However, they gave a break last Sunday and on Ramzan [Tuesday]. However, on Saturday, they hastily issued tokens [for alternative housing] to many of us, and began demolishing more buildings on Sunday,” said S. Ganesan, one of the affected residents.
The residents said they requested the officials to temporarily halt the eviction, noting that their case was coming up in the Supreme Court and citing the dilapidated condition of the houses being allocated to them at the Perumbakkam resettlement site.
On Friday, following complaints from a section of residents, senior officials from the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB) visited Perumbakkam and assured the allottees that they would consider allocating houses in the newly constructed buildings at the site in a few months’ time.
Among the documents which the residents showed to support their claim that their case was not adequately represented in the court was an order issued by the TNUHDB Managing Director in 2014. It mentioned that only 366 houses abutting the Buckingham Canal on Elango Street needed to be evicted. They were demolished subsequently. The 259 houses on government land being demolished now are located on the opposite row of the street.
They also showed an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in 2016 by then Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, in which he said the individual who filed the case had vested interests and was not acting in the public interest.
Veteran CPI leader R. Nallakannu, CPI State secretary R. Mutharasan and State executive committee member of CPI(M) K. Kanagaraj visited the site on Sunday and appealed to the government to halt the eviction. The drive was temporarily halted on Sunday after the immolation incident.
(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.)
