Flat-owners of ‘tilted’ multi-storey resist demolition by Kolkata Municipal Corporation, demand to meet Mayor

Owners of under-construction tilted building in Kolkata oppose KMC demolition, claiming lack of official order, sparking protests.

Owners of the ‘tilted’ under-construction building at Kolkata’s Tangra area vehemently opposed demolition attempts by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Thursday (January 30, 2025), claiming they were not given any official demolition order from the civic body.

This development comes after two multi-storey buildings at 11/2 Christopher Road — one, under construction, and the other, occupied — were found tilting precariously against one another last week. 

At around 11 a.m. on Thursday (January 30, 2025), around 14 labourers from the KMC arrived to start demolition work on the six-story under-construction building. But they were kept waiting till well beyond 4p.m., after the flat owners locked the gates from inside and refused to let them in.

“These two buildings were found tilting against one another. Notices were given to the occupiers of the building next to ours to vacate by January 25. But there are no notices from KMC regarding our building. We found out from news channels last night that our hard-earned homes will get demolished this morning,” said 35-year-old Ayan Das from inside the locked gates. 

Mr. Das was surrounded by at least a dozen fellow flat buyers who had been protesting since 7 in the morning by locking all entrances to the building and demanding to meet the KMC Mayor before any workers were let in for demolition work. 

He added that all 35 flat buyers were supposed to move into the completed flats by early 2025. But after news broke that the two adjoining buildings are tilting against one another, the promoter of the building, Surojit ‘Taklu’ Manna, has been missing and unreachable.

“There are rickshawallahs, manual labourers, people with daily wage jobs among us, for whom losing one day of work means loss of pay. Yet as flat buyers, we all had to gather here to stop this wrongful demolition. If we still lose our homes, we might just have to take our own lives,” Mr. Das said.