After the Bulldozers: Ahmedabad’s Displaced Muslims Left to Fend for Themselves |
Ahmedabad: “Everything that I bought with my hard-earned money, and the home I raised my children in, doesn’t exist anymore,” said Mumtaz.
In April and May 2025, the Gujarat government conducted a “mega demolition drive” against what they called illegal Bangladeshi settlements in Ahmedabad’s Chandola Lake area. The move came merely five months after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of people’s right to shelter and called out extra-judicial demolitions of properties by the state.
Today, Mumtaz’s home stands reduced to rubble alongside at least 12,000 other homes, which were razed by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation in April 2025. The drive in April happened in the backdrop of the Pahalgam attack, following soon after Union home minister Amit Shah vowed to uproot terrorism from India.
Nine months later, the remnants of homes surround the Chandola Lake, with no government redevelopment action in sight.
Sarkari Bano talks to her former neighbours in Chandola Lake’s Siyasat Nagar. Photo: Tarushi Aswani
“I could only see a sea of policemen as far as my vision went,” said Saiyed Minhajuddin, a former resident of Siyasat Nagar, near the Chandola Lake area.
Today when he stands at the lake, the debris of his house haunts him. As he recalls the day when decades of their hard work was laid to rest on the orders of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, he also feels violated, alone and uncertain.
“Before demolishing all our homes, the police rounded up people from the Bengali Vas area, and paraded 457 men for four kilometres, alleging that all of them were Bangladeshis who illegally entered India. After that, their JCBs rendered us homeless,” Minhajuddin told The Wire, pointing at the vast expanse of the demolished area, which was largely Muslim populated, with a smaller Devipujak population.
After the state flattened his and his neighbours’ houses, Minhajuddin and several others began searching for a roof that could shield them from Gujarat’s blazing heat and its brutal bureaucracy.
In April and May 2025, the Gujarat government conducted a demolition drive against allegedly illegal settlements of ‘Bangladeshis’ in Ahmedabad’s Chandola Lake area. Photo: Tarushi Aswani
“After our homes were stolen from us, landlords would quote us three times the rent, knowing our vulnerability,” said Sarkari Bano, who believes that poor people are born without rights.
Since that day, Bano feels isolated. She says that the government decision plucked them from the homes their parents made. “Humein 20 saal peeche kardia hai, yateem, bewa, gareeb sabse chhatt chheen li (They have pushed us 20 years back. They’ve robbed roofs from widows, orphans and the poor),” Bano said.
Ever since the demolition, empty auto rickshaws have become the living rooms for those dragged out of Siyasat Nagar. Though Minhajuddin and his family of four have been living in a cramped room in Khajuri, near Siyasat Nagar, what they are guarding with their lives are their........