Shiva compound residents fear losing homes

Secunderabad: The residents of Shiva Compound, near Cantonment playground, are in dilemma after the recent announcement by the Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) of removing voting rights of people living in central government lands, the residents have been living in fear of even losing their homes.

It may be noted that people raised concerns that during the period of Sujata Gupta as CEO of Cantonment Board, a JCB was sent to demolish the houses which was resisted by people who protested and the demolition was called-off.

Now people fear that votes may be removed and the Cantonment Board may ignore them and sooner or later they may lose their homes which they have been residing for decades. For the last few weeks, the residents of the cantonment have been coming together and spending a night under the programme ‘Basti Nidra’ to protest and attract the attention of the authorities. On Saturday, 250 people participated in the programme.

Every weekend they have dinner and cook food. Cantonment Congress leaders demanded that both local MLA Sayanna and MP Malla Reddy should intervene and protect 28,123 voters. They even failed in petitioning to the court of law, now they are coming up false promises of proposals of exchange of land which is nowhere on paper for these slum-dwellers but is actually being lobbied for Bison Polo Ground to construct a new Secretariat.