Continuing the sealing drive against illegal business establishments in New Delhi, three municipal corporations on Thursday targeted 528 properties/shops. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) alone sealed 350 shops in lajpat Nagar-4 and 106 units in 33 properties in Greater Kailash Enclave 2, Rajouri Garden, Janakpuri, Virender Nagar, Hari Nagar and other areas.
While North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) sealed 40 properties in areas like Nai Sadak, Sadar Bazar, Rajinder Nagar, Rohini Sector 16, Pitampura, Saraswati Vihar, Outram lane and Ramgarh GTK road; East Delhi Municipal Corporation sealed 32 properties in Gandhi Nagar, Shakarpur and Pandav Nagar.
Sealing drive in lajpat Nagar areas took a violent turn after locals got into scuffle with SDMC officials, forcing police to intervene and resort to lathi-charge to control the situation. Shop owners alleged that they were not given prior notices for sealing. “Civic body officials sealed my shop without giving me reason. I even produced documents to prove no due on my shop. But they did not listen anything,” said Sumit Kumar, owner of readymade garment shops.
Meanwhile, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) called a day-long ‘Trade Bandh’ on March 13 to lodge protest against sealing.
The decision was taken at a meeting convened by the CAIT and attended by leaders of more than 250 prominent trade associations.
“Traders are deeply annoyed in the manner the sealing is being done by making the entire area as police camp. They will be forced to shift their business to neighbouring cities like Noida, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Bahadurgarh, Sonepat if the situation does not improve,” a statement released by CAIT said.
The trade leaders further said that bungalows occupied by political parties and MPs in prestigious lutyan Zone have mass scale of unauthorised constructions in. But the Monitoring Committee has kept its eyes closed on these bungalows and could not muster courage to seal them, they alleged.
A senior SDMC official said the building departments carried out action on the direction of the Supreme Court-appointed Monitoring Committee.
“All the shops and properties were sealed for a number of reasons, including unauthorised construction of offices and rooms at different floors and ongoing commercial activities at basement and stilt parking areas, non-payment of conversion charges and encroachment. The action was taken in three zones, South, Central and West today and will be continue,” he said.
Meanwhile, one photo-journalist was allegedly assaulted by Additional DCP for clicking pictures during the sealing drive at lajpat Nagar.
A senior police officer said that the incident took place on Thursday afternoon at lajpat Nagar 4 area when the Additional DCP allegedly slapped one of the shop keepers for obstructing the officer from fulfilling the duty. “It was at that time that a photo-journalist of a Hindi daily clicked the picture of the incident. This led the addl DCP to seize the photo journalist’s camera. Following which the photographer was made to delete the pictures and taken by the two police constables to the police station,” he added.
However, Chief Spokesperson of the Delhi Police Madhur Verma said, “As soon as the matter came to my notice, I contacted the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast district) and he informed me that he is personally looking into it.”