Amid crackdown on Bangladeshi immigrants, shelter homes deny entry to homeless sans ID
The homeless are bearing the brunt of the crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in the national capital owing to the strict scrutiny of people before allowing them to spend a night at a shelter home when the city is in the grip of a severe coldwave.
A Delhi-based NGO, Centre for Holistic Development, has written a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, highlighting the plight of the homeless people.
In the letter, the NGO’s executive director Sunil Aledia stated that the people who were not having any valid identification were not allowed to stay at any shelter home as the Delhi Police had issued instructions in this regard.
“We have found that the Delhi Police personnel have issued verbal orders to several shelter homes, telling them not to allow anyone to stay without proper identification. Several people have reported this at the control room of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB),” Aledia said in the letter.
He said for the past many years, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court “monitored committees” had kept a watch on shelter homes and never found anyone involved in any such activity.
“In view of the cold weather in Delhi, thousands of homeless people are not able to enter the shelter homes due to the lack of identity cards. This may prove fatal for them,” the letter read.
Notably, the Delhi Police had recently started a comprehensive operation to find all people of Bangladeshi origin who were illegally residing in Delhi without any documentation. The directives were given by Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena who had set a two-month timeline to identify and expel all illegal intruders.
The NGO also alleged that an application named “Rain Basera”, started by the Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi Government nine years ago to help homeless people during the chilly winter season and rescue them immediately, was no longer functioning. “The application cannot be seen in the playstore,” Aledia said.
The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) has been operating and managing approximately 197 shelter homes in the city with a capacity of 7,092 people. Out of 197, 82 shelter homes are operational in the RCC buildings and 115 in porta-cabin structures throughout the year. However, during the current winter action plan, 250 more shelter homes have been set up in Pagoda tents at those locations which have high concentrations of homeless people.
