Families displaced by HYDRAA pour out their woes before BRS leaders

BRS leaders promise legal help to families displaced after HYDRAA demolished their homes.

HYDERABAD

Members of several families whose homes had been demolished by the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA) explained their grievances to Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders here on Saturday. The houses had been identified by the agency as having been built on encroached nalas (drains) and on the full tank level (FTP) areas and buffer zones of the waterbodies.

Party leaders T. Harish Rao, P. Sabitha Indra Reddy, M. Krishna Rao and others listened to the families, many of whom said they were unable to so much as make a meal with peace of mind and were at a loss as to whom to approach for justice. They had built the houses with the savings of hard-earned money and by availing of loans.

Responding to them, the BRS leaders said Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy was talking about ensuring the flow of Godavari water in the Musi river by displacing the poor and middle-class families settled along the river course. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was going around the country against the ‘bulldozer raj’, forgetting the fact that the same thing was happening in Telangana.

Mr. Harish Rao promised the displaced families that a team from the BRS legal cell would be at Telangana Bhavan to help them out. He sought to know why the poor and the middle-class families were not being given time when 45 days time was given to the Chief Minister’s brother.

He pointed out that most settlements along the nalas and around waterbodies had come up during the previous Congress rule, mostly from 1993, with the poor and middle-class purchasing sites and getting municipal permissions for the construction of houses. He remarked that HYDRAA had become a hydrogen bomb for the poor and middle class.

Later, the BRS leaders went to Gandhi Hospital to pay homage to Buchamma of Nallacheruvu buffer zone in Kukatpally constituency, who ended her life allegedly fearing demolition. They termed it a murder committed by the State government and not a suicide.