The name has an ironic resonance because Mumbai’s Golibar slum has been under the cosh for the last several years as the residents fight to save their homes from the developer’s bulldozers. It’s been a long, slow agonising retreat as door after door has been closed on their pleas to let them stay.
But the last 20 days have been particularly brutal on the residents of Golibar’s Ganesh Krupa Society, starting with the police lathi-charge of January 20, and the arrest of some 50 people, including Medha Patkar.
On February 2, the Bombay High Court ordered the arrest of the chief promoters of Shivalik Ventures, including managing directors Ramakant Jadav and Kiran Jadav. But over the next two days, instead of arresting them for fraud, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority and police arrived at Ganesh Krupa Society to demolish homes.
“We have a High Court order to follow,” deputy collector Rokade told the residents as they tried to prevent their pukka homes from demolition on February 3. They attempted to get a stay order, yet their turn in court never came up.
The Slum Rehabilitation Authority has the absolute right to cancel the letter of intent given to the builder if there is evidence of fraud. Yet it has not responded to any of the residents’ complaints of fraud or forgery against the builder.
As of February 8, the people didn’t have a stay order, and the chief promoters are still at large. “The government tries its best to protect the scamsters, but destroys the homes of the poor,” said a Golibar resident. One of the biggest investors in the SRA project is Unitech, under investigation in the 2G spectrum scam. In a public hearing/rally on February 6, over 4,500 residents gathered on the road next to the broken homes with members of Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao saying that Unitech, also responsible for the breaking of their homes, had close ties to Niira Radia, and received `750 crore from the US bank Lehmann Brothers whose collapse sparked the Great Recession that began in 2008.
In a top secret memo from the Office of the Director General of Income Tax (Investigation), that intercepted phone calls between Radia and associates, it is mentioned that, “There is suspicion that the group has taken bogus loan entries through entry operators. The entry operator, worried by the recession then, wanted to reverse the loan entries.”
“There are conversations indicating Unitech’s worry when Lehmann Bros collapsed. There was concern regarding two more tranches of money due to come through Lehmann from “Third Party” investors. There are conversations about damage control and immediate bogus announcement of investments coming from Telecom Italia into the (Unitech) telecom venture.”
From 323 homes, Ganesh Krupa Society is reduced to just 143. The people have decided they will stay and pledged to defend the standing homes against new demolition drives. The promoters, meanwhile, seem to live in a different world, where the rules don’t apply.
— javed@expressbuzz.com