Houses along Cooum razed, somesay they have nowhere else to go

CHENNAI: As nearly 100 families on Friday gathered their belongings to leave the small shacks that they called home in Arumbakkam on the banks of Cooum, several of them appeared to be nonplussed and forlorn.They were tenants who had occupied the small dwellings on Muthumariamman Koil Street that Greater Chennai Corporation and the Chennai River Resources Trust were demolishing with an excavator, lines of workers preparing to move out the debris.Although they too were upset about having to move, the owners of the houses on the street had received alternative accommodation in state housing board quarters in Navalur near Padappai. But the tenants — including 50 or so migrant workers from Bihar and other northern states — said they had nowhere to go.“We have suddenly become homeless; we didn’t know the authorities would evict us today because the owner of our house never us told us about this,” said Suresh Mishra, a native of Bihar and a restaurant worker on Poonamallee High Road.“The owner has not even repaid the advance that we gave him before moving into the house,” he said. “We tried to call him several times but he is not answering up the phone.”Mishra said he did not sign any rent agreement and so could not even approach the local police for help.Mishra’s neighbour Sunil Kumar Pandey, who had moved to the city from Bihar recently, was overwhelmed. Fighting back tears, Pandey said he had no money left after making a similar payment to his house owner.The house owners complained that the authorities were relocating people who were not on a list of residents supposed to move to Navalur in the first phase of the eviction on Friday.“It is the end of the year,” said S Kalaiselvi who works as a maid in Anna Nagar. “Where will our children go to school?”