Officials remove huts erected at new collectorate building in Mahabubabad

WARANGAL: Tension prevailed near the newly-constructed collectorate complex building as officials from the revenue, municipal and police departments attempted to remove shelters built by homeless impoverished families in Mahabubabad district on Tuesday.

Around 3,000 poor families have been living with their children for the past year after erecting temporary tents on government land in survey number 255/1. Many of them are day labourers and farm labourers, while others work as rickshaw pullers, auto drivers, and in agricultural markets.

They asked the government on multiple occasions to provide them at least 60 to 70 yards of land so that they could live with their children because they couldn't afford to pay expensive rates in rental dwellings. However, officials overheard their pleas and dismantled the huts four times previously.

When authorities from the revenue and municipal departments arrived on Tuesday morning with cranes and JCBs to remove the huts from government land, the shelter-less family protested and prevented them from entering the area. The information was then passed on to police officials, who later deployed a large police force and began dismantling temporarily erected huts and dwellings.

The homeless persons claimed that the officials arrived in the morning without prior notice and demanded them to depart the premises. It has become common for officials to come and demolish the dwellings every time we establish ourselves after overcoming great adversity. The officials and the homeless people got into a heated argument. The women attempted to halt the demolition process by climbing onto the cranes, but police officers intervened and dragged them back.