I once met a ‘criminal’ lawyer in a train on way to Allahabad. The engine broke down and we had a long conversation while waiting in wheat fields somewhere between Lucknow and Allahabad. He said if land mafia want they can grab your house anytime; I laughed in his face and said “Are you kidding?” he laughed back and said “I knew you would never believe me; no one can until it happens to him”. I never thought that within a few years it would happen to myself or just about since this is ongoing.
Around February 2021 we heard noises behind our house in an adjoining property we looked and found some half a dozen men with tree cutting tools working on wild plant and bushes that had grown over the property that belonged to our family and had been let out to a family by my grandfather. These tenants had not paid rent for at least two decades. It was a large family made larger because of matrimonial union with another family living in adjacent property also our tenants.
I asked the people cutting those trees about the future plans and they said the whole property had been bought by someone and that he had ordered clearing of the plants and trees. I thought it was a joke since in last one decade nearly a dozen people had come up to my father claiming they had bought even our house which is at the mouth of the property and that we should clear out for a small compensation. The lie that we did not own the property where we lived was perpetuated by the most sinister person of the tenant family in fact the head who had earned a lot of money by becoming a broker for a government doctor.
The so called buyers disappeared after they asked around and were probably told the truth.
One day someone called aloud from the property for my father who a cancer patient and much demoralized was literally shivering as he was due to go for his surgery to Bangalore soon and felt the plans might be scuttled due to a new nuisance in the neighbourhood. I thought he was just being paranoid but he was right. I went up on the terrace and saw a man with dark glasses, very tall, dark and with a beard. He said he had bought the whole property and that we should clear out soon and that he was ready to pay a small sum. I said that with COVID raging on we are not even in a position to talk but he seemed to have lost the faculty of hearing and just blabbered on. Thankfully he disappeared after this and the tree cutting continued.
After about a week father left for his surgery and the tree cutting finished. Now a gang of demolishers descended on the property. They started demolishing some dilapidated houses with a vengeance even using electric machines, my house started shaking with the impact since it is made of lakhauri bricks and is quite old. We kept quiet since the demolition was going on in a property the tenant seemed to have bought though we felt quite concerned.
A gang of very uncouth, foul mouthed and delinquent looking men some six in number started hanging around below our house since then and have not left even for a single day since March 16 2021. While I was going out one day one of these uncouth creatures stopped me and said “I hope your house above is vacant since we are going to demolish it and everything you might leave there is going to come down”, this sent alarm bells ringing and I was at my wits end since father’s future was already uncertain and he had left the city.
I approached a journalist friend who with the help of another journalist in a leading daily in Lucknow fixed up my appointment with the ACP of police of our area. I gave him my application and he sent me to the SHO of our area, the SHO instructed the chowki in charge of our area and I went to meet him. The chowki in charge promptly stopped all work at the site and the men went away but their leader whose name I did not know then but now know to be one Karimullah was the main ‘architect’ behind systematic demolition of our house on one pretext or another. He never left! He stayed in front of our house down there below, looking periodically up at our house with his fierce eyes and his sinister expression; I can never forget him till I live! He has been like a tiger chasing a deer who just does not give up!
In about ten days time the work on the property started again; we ignored it this time since it was again being done in a property we believed the tenant had brought from my grandfather’s brother. But that was only the fig leaf as we later realised, the mission of this Karmiullah chap was to actually break down our house. We again inquired from the labourers working there and they said that all tenants, the relatives of that sinister tenant who had moved to a more posh location of the city after making money, were going to go away including a childless widow the sister in law of the tenant who was the head of the family. I decided to quiz the widowed woman who lived just below our floor. She was literally shaking with fear and in tears, I tried to calm her but she kept on saying “We are powerless! Only you can help us! They are forcing us out of our own home!” I informed the police and gave them her number but it appears she was too afraid to talk to the police! I myself called her many times but she stopped picking up my phone! I called up her adopted son but he too was very afraid and only picked up my phone once.
The demolition squad gradually tried moving closer to our house and then I called the chauki in charge again, he stopped their progress and told them to restrict themselves to an area which they had purchased only. Around this time he called me to the police chowki and this is where the nightmare started!
I was met by two very tall and one very fat man all claiming to be lawyers. One of these was wearing the mask that lawyers in court wear during COVID. They abused me in the police chowki while the chowki in charge was busy talking to other people. They said they will beat me up whenever they saw me and that I should discuss vacation of our home with them. I tried to maintain my cool seeing how comfortable they were in the police chowki while I was afraid what might happen to me. I told them that I did not talk to strangers and that they should show me some proof of their identity which of course they never did. I asked them to show me some proof that they had bought the property but they were unable to do that and showed instead some fake papers. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, I do not know why but chowki in charge was really cowed down by these people. Later I got to know that they were actually office bearers of some kind of bar association in civil court in Lucknow and that at least one of them was notorious for being part of land grab cases in Lucknow.
The chowki in charge said that since he was unable to solve the problem we should meet the SHO and talk to him in a few days.
I got out of there much relieved and in a few days the second wave of Corona hit India. The SHO and all senior officers were said to be infected and went into isolation. Work stopped somehow and I started writing to senior officers and leaders in Lucknow including the CM and my local MLA but due to Corona everything had suddenly come to a standstill and I could not meet anyone. CM’s Janata Darshan had also been suspended and he himself was infected so nothing could be done anymore. I started appealing to all the bureaucrats, leaders and the CM himself on twitter but till date I have not got a single reply or information about action taken from anyone at all.
After about a fortnight during which time the work remained suspended, something terrible happened. The work had remained suspended I got to know later because the kingpin of all this sinister plan the tenant , the head of the family had died, I got to know this only a few days back.
So the terrible event was that the day after the last tenant shifted some half a dozen people started breaking down our very house. I put a video of it on twitter and called up the SHO of our area who sent a new chowki in charge since the older in charge had lost his father and was away. Both me and my father were shaking with fear while these half a dozen men would have broken into our house and I have no idea what they would have done. Fortunately I have the videos of these happenings. The police came but before that those three sinister people turned up and shouted obscenities at us and told the demolition gang to demolish our house with a vengeance and without any fear. I have the video of this sinister even happening in the capital of Uttar Pradesh.
The chowki in charge came and stopped all work and told us to meet the SHO the next day with our papers. I was so afraid that I hired a lawyer to accompany me to the SHO’s office.
I reached the SHO’s office the next day and there were these guys already there settled in comfortably as if they were sitting in their drawing room while I was trembling with fear. I told the SHO that I feel reluctant in speaking to strangers and that they should show some identification but this was ignored and till now I have no details about this. I asked the SHO to make these people show the proof that they had bought the property but they showed only a couple of papers of property the dead tenant had bought from my aunt in the name of his daughter in law, nothing proved that the so called lawyers present there owned even an inch of land there. I kept on demanding but got no papers. The SHO asked them what they wanted and they said that they wanted to dig out a passage below our house so that they could move out the debris. This was of course only an excuse to start demolition activity. Ultimately the SHO made me agree to an arrangement wherein the demolition will stop below our house and their engineer will survey the spot and decide whether carving out a passage will be practical. I reluctantly agreed but said that they must give in writing that they will make good any losses if the demolition activity damaged our house. I waited for a week but demolition went on below our house with a vengeance without any undertaking being given by them as agreed in the office of the SHO. One day a team from Bharat Samachar a Hindi news channel hearing about my problem came to meet me and make a report. The workers immediately phoned up the tall man who claimed to have bought the property at the beginning appeared immediately, while the crew of Bharat Samachar was going out the tall man with his half a dozen men threatened to beat up the crew.
The tall man suddenly got panicky and even against advice of his senior workers had a load bearing wall demolished in the ground floor. I phoned up the SHO who asked me to meet him in his office.
When I reached his office these guys were already there smiling and being very comfortable. I complained to the SHO that in spite of agreement made in his office these people never honoured it, never gave me an undertaking and had now demolished a load bearing wall. The SHO did not do anything and in just passed on my proforma for an ‘indemnity bond’ which they have till date not filled up and given to me.
Karimullah the demolition man has meanwhile relieved the floors below of everything, doors, windows, electric fittings, water lines everything even loose bricks. Every day there is some damage to our house from below. Everyday my father just hides behind the curtain in our balcony and watches these goons looking up at our house with sinister intent.
Our problems were compounded due to the fact that civil courts were closed mostly since late March and have only now opened but not fully.
We have written to and I have personally met every senior bureaucrat including some police officers but to the best of our knowledge except from the chowki in charge no government servant has taken any action. We are defenceless against this huge army of land grabbers with police saying it is a ‘civil’ matter whatever that means and not putting the fear of God in these lawless people as we have been expecting since day one.
