Eviction due to G-20 meeting in India: Former Dy Mayor to be invited for a public hearing
Former Deputy Mayor of Shimla Municipal Corporation and CPI(M) leader from Himachal Pradesh Tekinder Singh Panwar was invited as a jury member for a public hearing being organized under the banner of Concerned Citizens and a collective of organizations.
Sharing the invitation to the public hearing with us former mayor stated that he would attend the invitation received from National Hawkers Federation, Delhi Solidarity Group, Delhi Forum, People’s Resource Centre, Centre for Financial Accountability, Basti Suraksha Manch and All India Kabadi Mazdoor Mahasangh.
The former mayor has vast experience to present the country as leader of Local self-government in the capacity of head of Shimla town.
He said that the public hearing would be held on May 22 in the context of mass evictions happening with regard to G20 events in the country.
The public hearing would focus on forced evictions that are happening in multiple cities due to Group of Twenty (G20) events and meetings.
India being president of G20 hosting the summit this year. Before the summit, G20 meetings are happening in more than 50 cities in India.
Wherever these meetings are being organized, city administrations in collusion with different departments – municipality, tourism, police, etc. are evicting street vendors, waste pickers, and traders, demolishing houses of urban poor, destroying night shelters, and displacing homeless people.
According to the above Civil Rights group this is being done in the name of removing “illegal encroachment” from urban spaces. In some cases, even the judiciary has not provided any relief to the affected communities.
This also is happening in Delhi on a very large scale Homeless people were displaced, Demolition in Tughlakabad and Mehrauli, Demolition in Bela Estate at Yamuna, and Destroyed Night shelters), and the same happened in many other cities (Nagpur, Vizag, Pant Nagar, Ramnagar, Udhar Nagar, Guwahati, Mumbai, Mahabalipuram, Darjeeling) before G20 meetings.
As more cities are going to host upcoming G20 meetings in the next three-four months, the urban poor face the threat of destruction of their houses and livelihood, and the civil rights group are deeply concerned.
It is not the first time that people living on the street are being subjected to such inhuman treatment but slums are subjected to similar insane action when foreign dignitaries visit the country.
A half-kilometer brick and mortar wall has been hastily erected on February 2029 in Gujarat ahead of a visit by former US president Donald Trump, amid allegations that it was built to block the view of a slum area inhabited by more than 2,000 people.
