Dear Friends

Ever since the tsunami affected left out families filed a PIL in the High Court and got a favourable order directing the State Government to consider these families in the allotment of remaining houses in Tondiarpet, the Collector of Chennai has been harsher to them. This is evident by her brutal demolition of the semi permanent houses throwing the Humanitarian principles and Human Rights of the affected into the winds. The semi permanent houses were demolished on Saturday (6th October 2007) shockingly with out any prior notice to the people already living with fear, insecurity and without basic necessities like drinking water and electricity.

The people who executed this inhumane act had no empathy to these poor citizens who have been suffering ever since tsunami. Their knowledge on disasters have been narrow as they did not realize that they were creating a man made disaster by this forceful eviction, displacing them yet again and rendering them homeless.

Before demolishing the houses they did not even ensure that every one was out of the houses. When the bull dozers started the demolition, a one year old girl child was inside the house in phase I, while her mother was picking her belongings from her house. Noticing the brick wall was coming down she grabbed the child and ran out screaming. Fortunately both were saved. Another person in Phase 1, who had his petty shop inside his house as his livelihood was also demolished without even allowing him to take away his things. Material loss for many varied based on their ability to salvage within the time.

To all the people's surprise they have out of mercy have left out some houses undemolished and asked the tsunami affected people who were not continuously living in Ernavur, but who came to Ernavur hearing the news, to occupy those undemolished houses and rendered many who were continuously living in the semi permanent houses without a roof. They will now include these new comers as the ones living there continuously and deliberately neglect the already living and suffering families in Ernavur since they have filed the case in the High Court against the Collector.

NGOs are blamed for educating the people of their Human Rights and for guiding them to seek justice through lawful means. NGOs are now treated as though they are the foes of the Government; forgetting the historic Government - NGO coordination after tsunami which resulted in the construction of these semi permanent houses in Ernavur built by the NGOs and various other services rendered by the NGOs during crisis situations.

This was evident by the fact that the Ponneri RDO who was heading the demolition team besides verbally abusing the people also blamed the NGOs and maliciously instigated some people to become violent against the NGOs as though they were the reason for the demolition of the houses. When the NGO workers asked the RDO why she was instigating the people, she was outrageously challenging that she would continue to instigate, since the NGOs were with these poor people. This proves that these officials want the poor people to be ignorant of their rights and be voiceless while they continue to do injustice to them, and want the NGOs only to be subservient.

The following questions arise due to the Collector of Chennai's inhumane action:

1. What was the necessity for the Collector to demolish these houses before allotting permanent houses?

2. Why did the Collector not inform the people before hand that they will be demolishing the houses on that particular date?

3. Why did the Ponneri RDO not provide time for the people to take away their belongings before demolishing their houses?

4. When the Collector has so far allotted only 991 houses, why did they demolish more than 1500 houses?

5. Why the Collector has not allotted houses to the left out families as per the direction of the High Court.?

6. Why did they terrorize the people and evict them?

7. Why have they not restored electricity and water to the people who are still living in Ernavur despite the brutal demolition?

8. When the people's houses were being demolished can any one expect them to keep quiet? But the RDO has asked the police to arrest a woman for objecting to the demolition.

Dear human rights defenders and activists, I am writing to you with much pain in my heart to see this injustice ruthlessly being done to these families who have been experiencing continuous disasters for the past 2 years and 10 months. As you all know that the tsunami affected families in North Chennai living in Ernavur semi permanent shelters have already experienced multiple disasters, should we not unit to restore justice to these people?. People are still living in the demolished site, some in the project office building in Ernavur. It is heart rending to see them suffer.

Dr. N. Paul Sunder Singh Director

email: karunalaya@hotmail.com