Demolition Updates: Delhi BJP Leaders Meet Union Home Minister

Today, top Delhi BJP leaders met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the Union Home Ministry headquarters in Delhi, hours after the Supreme Court halted a controversial demolition drive in violence-hit Jahangirpuri.

Union Home Minister met with the Delhi leaders for an hour. In the meeting, the present officials were Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta, MP Ramesh Bidhuri, MLA Ram Bir Bidhuri, and leader Maninder Singh Sirsa. The leaders did not disclose anything about the talks.

Adesh Gupta wrote to North Delhi Municipal Corporation Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh to ask for an anti-encroachment drive in the area where communal clashes erupted during the Hanuman Jayanti procession on Saturday.

Mr. Gupta asked the civic body to identify illegal constructions by "rioters" and demolish them.

Demolition teams and hundreds of police officers arrived at Jahangirpuri in the morning. After the drive, a petition was filed with the Supreme Court declaring it illegal.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear the petition, which flags the worrying trend seen in states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and now Delhi of communal clashes followed by anti-encroachment drives targeting one community.

As a result, a bench headed by Chief Justice NV Ramana agreed to hold an "urgent hearing" and halted the demolition of Jahangirpuri until then.

Despite the Supreme Court's order, the civic body's bulldozers kept going. There were 20 shops destroyed, along with a wall and gate of the mosque at the center of Saturday's violence, before the civic teams stopped after a second intervention by the Chief Justice.

In a statement issued this evening, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation stated that the anti-encroachment drive was meant to clear pedestrian walkways and roads to ease traffic.