It's Armageddon at Arakere as BBMP's demolition army rolls in

Bengaluru: On Saturday morning, their world came crashing around them.
At 9.30 am, the first bulldozers pulled into Avani Sringerinagar, Arekere without warning. By 12 noon, as residents watched open-mouthed, the first house that sat, slap bang in the middle of the Raja Kaluve that blocked the stormwaters into Arekere lake that inundated homes in nearby Kodichikkanahalli, was reduced to rubble.

Its shell-shocked owner Pradeeep was speechless, in tears. His protests had fallen on deaf ears as the BBMP made an example of him. The encroachment drive by BBMP had begun in earnest only to slow as other residents agreed to give up the critical 2.44 metres of land on which their homes had illegally encroached.

Nine houses and seven vacant plots are currently built on the Raja Kaluve which barrels through a total of 17 properties. All the houses sitting on the storm water drain are on the demolition list.

But unlike the hapless Pradeep, the other encroachers, whose homes also sat on the stormwater drains, were a tad luckier - the demolishers slowed and only a portion of their boundary walls were brought down, raising questions on how a partial demolition will stop the rainwaters flooding Kodichikkanahalli again.

Almost 80% of Pradeep's house was razed by the time BBMP commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad arrived at the spot and told residents their constructions on the Raja Kaluve were illegal and the BBMP had to bring them down.