Slum razing renders malnourished kids homeless

MUMBAI: An emaciated eight-month-old called Tauheel Shaikh lies cradled on a weighing scale, which pegs his weight at a mere 3 kilograms. For his age, he is obviously malnourished. His was one of the 100-odd homes that were demolished last week in the Rafiq Nagar slums of Govandi that are abutting the dumping ground.
Ironically, it was a spate of infant deaths in this very same slum that spurred the state government to work on a scheme to fight malnutrition two months ago.
A five-minute walk from Tauheel's house lies a two-and-a-half-year-old girl called Sania who weighs 4 kg and can neither walk nor talk. She was too weak to utter any sound when rats nibbled at her face one day. Sania is amongst the "lucky" ones whose home missed being demolished.
"Between April 2010 and March 2011, 20 children under the age of five have died in Rafiq Nagar. Many of the children were malnourished and died of disease," said Dnyaneshwar Tarwade, assistant director, Apnalaya, an NGO that works with slum communities. Last week, their homes were demolished. A young mother, Tasleem Shaikh, was tending to her five-day-old baby when the demolitions began. "The police hit me with a stick and threw me out of my house," she says. Tasleem, who works as a rag-picker, has five children to look after. A broken door lies on the floor of Zeenat Bi's home; she spent Rs 4,000 on waterproofing her home before the monsoons. She now spent another Rs 1,500 to buy a large political banner which serves as a roof.
"On May 25, after two days of negotiations, police officials announced over a loudspeaker that they would only demolish 50 slums that had come up along the nullah that separated the slums from the dumping ground. But BMC brought along four bulldozers and began flattening many more homes inside the slum," said Tarwade.
anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com