Huts on SRSP lands demolished, 100 families rendered homeless

​Hanamkonda: As many as 100 families have been rendered homeless in a demolition drive at the crack of dawn on Wednesday at Jagjivan Ram Colony, when the huts of poor labourers were razed to the ground on SRSP lands.

In a joint operation launched at 4 am jointly by police and revenue departments, five earth movers pulled down and flattened everything in the houses, while some managed to save their household goods.

According to officials, in all, there were 128 houses in which around 100 families were residing while the others remained vacant. The houses were built on SRSP lands and the residents were given notices a couple of months ago asking them to vacate their houses.

Warangal MRO B Rajesh told press persons that in order to supply water to neighbouring districts through the SRSP Canal, the Irrigation Department intended to increase the volume of water flow in the canal. The bund of the canal has to be strengthened and as such, it was required to evacuate the colony.

Moreover, residing beside the canal could be dangerous and it was explained to the residents by Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao during his recent visit to Warangal to inspect the canal, the official noted.

However, the residents who bore the brunt of demolition were fretting and fuming at the officials as well as the government. “They didn’t even give us a chance to get the goods out of our houses. We lost food grains and now were left to starve” complained a housewife N Adilakshmi.

Coming down heavily against the demolition drive, a fruit seller Ahmed Pasha sought to know the reason as to why the officials launched the demolition operations before sunrise. ‘Most of us were asleep and they came like thieves and we lost our houses and provisions’ he added.

Referring to the notice given by officials to vacate the houses, another resident K Sudhakar said the ruling party leaders assured them that only two rows of houses close to the bund would be removed. ‘But now, the entire colony was wiped out’ he lamented.

Meanwhile, the district Congress president N Rajender Reddy, city Congress leaders Rajanala Srihari and K Srinivas Rao, block Congress president G Raju and others visited the colony and extended their solidarity to the affected families.

Speaking to the media, they strongly condemned the government failure to provide alternate housing beforehand to the families that were made homeless. It was cruel that the residents were not given time even to take out food grains from their houses, they lamented.