Allahabad University’s retired Urdu professor Ali Ahmed Fatmi on Wednesday said he was grateful and satisfied that the Supreme Court “understood our pain” a day after the top court censured Prayagraj Development Authority (PDA) for demolishing the homes of Fatmi and four others in March 2021, allegedly without following proper legal procedure, and ordered compensation of ₹10 lakh to each aggrieved house owner.
A well-known litterateur and former head of the Urdu department of Allahabad University (AU), Prof Fatmi’s house was demolished on March 7, 2021 on the ground that it was an illegal construction on Nazul land.
The administration also demolished his daughter Naila Fatmi’s house as well as other adjoining properties including those of lawyer Zulfiquar Haider, Baby Maimuna and Shahnaz Parveen.
At the time of the demolition, Prayagraj Development Authority had launched a massive campaign against the city’s mafias.
During the seven-month campaign, most demolitions targeted the alleged constructions of mafia Atiq Ahmad and his relatives.
Bulldozers were used on more than 2000 bighas of illegal plots of land mafias close to Atiq.
The demolition process at Lukerganj had started with PDA serving a demolition notice on Fatmi on the evening of March 6, 2021.
“The notice, however, was dated March 1. They just threw the notice in the house and when my younger daughter stopped the man and asked, all he said was to look at the notice. I was in Jamshedpur at the time attending a marriage function when my daughter called me up and informed me about the notice. I immediately hired a taxi and rushed back. On March 7, 2021 (a Sunday), the officials arrived with bulldozers to demolish the house at 10am and started the demolition by 12 noon giving us just time to vacate the premises in a hurry,” he added.
Fatmi and others had immediately moved Allahabad high court but got no relief. By the time, the matter was heard on March 8 and the petition dismissed, their homes had already been demolished. They then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Fatmi shared that helplessly watching his house of over 30 years being demolished was extremely painful but so was the loss of his elaborate library, where he had stored hundreds of books.
“It sends a shiver down my spine even today. We were at our wit’s end as to what to do. We received a huge financial setback, but the emotional loss was greater. My wife, a chronic diabetic, never recovered and passed away in September 2021, which was a second blow for us. I suffered a major heart attack in 2022 and had to undergo a surgical procedure,” he said.
After his house was demolished in 2021, Prof Fatmi initially lived at his in-law’s place for about two months before moving into a flat he had purchased from his retirement funds, which he got after retiring from AU in June 2019, in the Kareli area of Prayagraj.
“However, it’s a small flat that initially I planned to give to my younger daughter but following the demolition, I moved into it and I am staying in it with my daughter. It does not have the space to keep the books I want. I only have a handful of books now. I gave away most of them after the demolition,” he said.
Prof Fatmi refrained from talking about the legal aspects of the case, maintaining that he was yet to get a copy of the court order and discuss it with his lawyer.
“However, I am grateful and satisfied with the Supreme Court verdict as the court understood our pain and termed the demolition as inhuman and illegal. My house that was demolished had six rooms constructed on 160 vargaj (1 Gaj is 8.99992436 square feet) plot and that of my daughter had three rooms. The compensation of ₹10 lakh each is very little in that way, but I am satisfied as our stand has been vindicated,” he added.
Calling the demolition of residential homes in Prayagraj “inhuman and illegal”, the Supreme Court on April 1 ordered the Prayagraj Development Authority to pay ₹10 lakh compensation to each aggrieved house owner within six weeks.
“The manner in which the demolition has taken place shocks our conscience. Residences of the appellants have been high-handedly demolished. There is something called right to shelter, due process of law,” said a bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan.
Prof Fatmi and other litigants even today do not understand why their houses were demolished. The administration had no reason to target us, they maintained.
They believe that the administration was eager to clear the entire plot of land (Nazul plot no 19) in Lukerganj locality. They had earlier declared a portion of it belonging to former MP Atiq Ahmad an illegal encroachment and demolished it just days earlier.
Atiq, a criminal-turned-politician, was accused of various offences including charges under Gangsters Act. He, along with his brother Khalid Azeem alias Ashraf, was shot dead in Prayagraj while in police custody by three gunmen while the brothers were on way to a court-mandated medical checkup on April 15, 2023.
Litigants maintain that as Atiq’s properties were situated on either side of their houses, the officials, after demolishing his properties, wanted to raze the adjoining structures to vacate the entire plot and this led to their houses also being demolished.