Vakeel Hasan, a rat-hole miner who played a major part in the Uttarakhand underground rescue effort last year, owned one of the homes demolished by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) recently.
The DDA stated that the destruction on Wednesday was part of a larger attempt to remove illegal encroachments in northeast Delhi’s Khajuri Khas region.
However, Hasan and other residents argue that they were not given any prior notice. Hasan expressed his dismay, stating, “I am Vakeel Hasan. The reward we got for saving 41 from Uttarakhand’s Silkyara tunnel was that our house had been demolished. I need help. They have caught me, and my children, and are keeping us in a police station. They have also beaten some of us.”
#Delhi | House of a rat-hole miner involved in the Uttarakhand tunnel rescue operation razed during DDA's demolition drive.
— NDTV (@ndtv) February 29, 2024
(Video: ANI) pic.twitter.com/fV8uTnschP
Munna Qureshi, another miner involved in the rescue operation, echoed Hasan’s sentiments, saying, “The government had assured us that they would give us the privilege of sitting at home, but they have snatched our team member’s home.”
The DDA countered these claims, asserting that prior information had been given to all the residents. Officials also said that the land was designated for planned development.
The Silkyara-Barkot tunnel rescue operation gained widespread recognition for its use of rat-hole mining, a practice banned for safety reasons. The miners, including Vakeel Khan and Munna Qureshi, stepped in when high-tech, imported machines failed during the operation in November 2023.
Mr Khan, a rat-hole miner employed by a Delhi engineering services company, vividly described the moment of the successful rescue. “They hugged me, cheered in applause, and thanked me profusely,” he had said after the trapped workers who spent 17 days in the tunnel were successfully brought out.
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