NSG issues eviction notice to Mehram Nagar village
The existence of the nearly 300-years-old Mehram Nagar village, located near Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, is now in danger. There is deep resentment and fear among the villagers after the National Security Guard (NSG) posted an eviction notice. A mahapanchayat was held in the village on Sunday. So far, approximately 300 to 400 villagers have received notices to vacate their homes. The notice states that the NSG’s land is encroached upon and must be vacated by September 30th. However, the villagers have already received a three-month reprieve from the court.
Delhi Congress president Devendra Yadav and Aam Aadmi Party state presidents Saurabh Bhardwaj and Devendra Yadav attended the Mahapanchayat. The villagers say that this is a historic and ancient village. Now, a notice has been issued to vacate the village. The villagers say that the notice has been received and they have been told to vacate their homes. Addressing a Mahapanchayat, Yadav slammed the BJP-ruled Delhi government and said Congress will take the fight of the residents of East Mehram Nagar to its logical end, to protect their interest, as the temporary relief they got from the court was not enough.
He said that the pro-rich Rekha Gupta Government has neglected the villages of Delhi without any development or civic facilities, as he himself hailed from a village, and was a victim of BJP’s anti-poor, anti-village policies. He said that the BJP Government’s focus has been city-centric as it had neglected the urban villages and rural areas of the Capital, though Delhi was developed on the farm lands acquired from them at throw away prices, but now the villagers of Delhi have become strangers in their own lands.
Yadav said that Congress was solidly with the villagers of Mehram Nagar in their fight to protect their property and will not allow the Rekha Gupta Government to uproot them, as the demolition drive of JJ Clusters was stopped after Delhi Congress put up a strong resistance. The Delhi unit president recalled how the BJP was forced to backtrack after a Mahapanchayat stopped its attempt to raze Haryana’s Anangpur village, warning that its fresh bid to demolish Mehram Nagar will now face the united opposition of ‘36 biradaris’ and 365 Delhi villages.
Bharadwaj stated, "A few weeks ago there was an attempt to raze Anangpur village in Haryana, adjacent to Delhi, and bulldozers were sent there. Then there was a large mahapanchayat in Faridabad attended by people from Delhi-Haryana villages and rural areas and farmer unions from Uttar Pradesh. The national president of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), Rakesh Tikait, also came and the government had to halt its action. Today people from all over Delhi’s villages and rural neighbourhoods — ‘36 biradaris’ and 365 villages — have gathered here to send a message to the government that such arbitrariness and goondaism will not be tolerated."
