The Udaipur Municipal Corporation on Saturday demolished the rented home of a 15-year-old Muslim boy accused of stabbing his Hindu classmate, on the grounds that the structure was illegally built on land belonging to the forest department, reported The Hindu.
“The owner was not able to provide any form of ownership document, after which the house was demolished,” Udaipur Inspector General Ajay Lamba told The Indian Express.
Lamba added that the minor and his father have been detained and that further action would be taken in accordance with the Juvenile Justice Act. It is unclear what specific charges have been invoked against the parent.
In recent years, there has been a growing trend of civic authorities in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states summarily demolishing purportedly illegal properties of those accused of crime, mostly Muslims.
There are no provisions in Indian law that allow for such punitive demolitions.
In a video that circulated online after the demolition, the owner of the house, Rashid Khan, can be seen saying: “The family of the boy who was involved is now living at their relative’s place. Why is the administration demolishing my house? I went to the municipal corporation but everyone is on leave. I went to the police station but they refused to stop the demolition. This is an injustice towards me. I have lost my house without any fault of mine.”
Khan also says in the video that four other families who were living in the house had been asked to vacate.
An evacuation notice was sent to the minor’s family on Saturday morning and the house was demolished by noon, despite them being given three days to vacate the premises.
The condition of the Muslim boy’s classmate, who was allegedly stabbed, is stable, Udaipur Collector Arvind Poswal confirmed to The Hindu. He said that a team of doctors from Jaipur had arrived in the city to monitor his treatment.
The incident triggered communal violence in parts of Udaipur on Friday, reported PTI. Members of Hindu right-wing groups who had gathered in the city’s Madhuban locality set fire to at least three cars and threw stones.
The mobs also ransacked shops and shouted provocative slogans outside some dargahs and mosques in the city, reported The Hindu.
The violence prompted the district administration to issue prohibitory orders and suspend internet services in parts of Udaipur for 24 hours. All government and private schools in the city were shut on Friday.
The People’s Union for Civil Liberties objected to the “bulldozer justice” targeting the Muslim boy’s family.
“There are more than 200 houses constructed in the locality, but only the family of the juvenile in conflict with law was targeted by the authorities to satisfy the power lust of certain miscreants who benefit from such communal tensions,” the group’s president Kavita Srivastava said. “Friends and relatives were denying shelter to the dispossessed family members for fear of action by the police.”
The rights group sought the Rajasthan High Court’s intervention in the matter and asked that the dispossessed family be provided shelter and compensated for the demolition of their home.
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