NEW DELHI: It’s a month since Jahangirpuri saw a tense day when communal passions threatened to spiral out of control. While the barricading and the presence of police and paramilitary personnel still remind of the violence that rocked the area on April 16, many other facets of life are back to normal. Movement of goods and services have mostly resumed and some of the structures demolished by North Delhi Municipal Corporation have been restored.
As a sign that things were returning to normal, Dilip Saxena reopened his juice shop a few days ago. A bulldozer had razed his shop at the Kushal Cinema intersection soon after the communal violence for allegedly encroaching on public land. “The corporation illegally demolished some structures and is now admitting they were wrong. But that won’t compensate me for the loss I suffered,” said Saxena. “Because of the sheer need to survive, I mustered whatever little I could and reopened my shop. But there are fewer people on this road now and business will take a while to pick up.”
Shops like these were allotted to the residents by DDA in 1978 and the aggrieved owners claimed to have suffered even though they had valid licences to run them. Ganesh Gupta, who also has a juice shop close to Saxena’s, worried that the setback will affect the wedding of his daughter in November. “The demolition squad broke my counter and damaged other things. The repair work requires money which I don’t have and so I only open the shutters and sell soft drinks. I will have to request my daughter’s prospective in-laws to change the wedding date,” said Gupta.
Gupta disclosed that he had sued the municipal corporation for demolishing their shops without giving them notice. “In court, the corporation exhibited a fake notice. We never got them,” he insisted.All the four roads at the Kushal Cinema intersection are open, but traffic is permitted only on a single carriageway, with the second carriageway occupied by the tents of the security personnel.
On Monday, TOI found Rihana Bibi, 41, frying pooris at her snack cart while her diabetic husband, Sheikh Sharat, was packing food for some customers. Bibi lost her food cart during the police action against rioters. Some do-gooders have helped her acquire another cart so she can start earning again.
“For almost a month, everyone here lived in fear,” said Bibi. “We got a new cart, thanks to some good people, but it’s still a struggle because we have to repay a loan of Rs 2 lakh. This, when cooking oil costs around Rs 180 a kilo and a gas cylinder over Rs 1,000. Earlier, I sold almost an entire pot of aloo-matar, but now cook less than half that.”
The couple said that though the situation is better now, people still aren’t out in numbers on the streets. But their business has also been hurt because they had to shift. Earlier, Rihana and Sharat stationed their food cart near the junction. But with the cops now stationed there, they have had to move from the lucrative area. “Once the policemen leave, I guess we will go back to that spot. We used to earn Rs 500-600 daily, but we barely get half that now,” said Bibi.
Many food cart owners have had to shift from their earlier posts, even if temporarily. A prime location is outside the main mosque there, but security personnel are stationed there since April 16. Rahima’s son, Asif, used to collect coins there with Mahatma Gandhi’s picture and Mera Bharat Mahan inscribed on it but lost his piggy bank when their food cart was destroyed. Rahima has acquired a new one, but she hasn’t resumed her business because the policemen now occupy the place where she stood her cart earlier.
Many others are similarly biding their time. Mohammad Fareed and his neighbours, Rashida and Rokiya, too had their food-cart business disrupted by the rioting and the police action. They said the money given as assistance by some people had gone into buying food for their families. Fareed said he was having a tough time paying the installments of a loan he had taken after his fried chicken snack cart was damaged and confiscated by the civic authorities.
