Cancel Flat Allotment To Muslim Woman In “Hindu Area”: Housing Residents in Vadodara.

Demanding that the allotted flat be cancelled, the residents warned of intensifying their agitation and taking up the matter with the state and the Centre.

Snigdha Rupala | HENB | Vadodara | June 16, 2024:: Strong Hindu protest surfaced in a Vadodara Housing Society as a Muslim woman has been allotted with a flat there which false in a ‘disturbed area’.

Several Hindu residents of a housing complex built by the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) under a Gujarat government scheme have been staging protests against the allotment of an apartment to a Muslim woman, saying the locality is meant for Hindus only. The agitators say that such allocation of flat to a Muslim family will create further problem as the new resident belonging different faith, religious practice and food habits may hurt the Hindu sentiments in a violative mode. The Hindu protestors wanted to mean the ‘beef eating’, ‘probable cow slaughter’, ‘five time Adhan hooting’, ‘coming of unknown Muslim clerics’ and  ‘frequenting of burqa clad women or other persons’ as their problems. All these indicates a cultural crisis and security problems in the area as apprehended by the agitated residents.

Demanding that the allotted flat be cancelled, the residents warned of intensifying their agitation and taking up the matter with the state and the Centre.

The Muslim woman beneficiary said although she was allotted the house six years back, she could not move in due to opposition from other residents.

The Hindu residents claim that houses cannot be allotted to members of the minority communities because the Harni area, where the complex is located, is a Hindu locality and falls under the Disturbed Areas Act that bans the sale of property by members of one religious community to those from another without prior approval from the district collector in areas declared as “disturbed areas”.

Municipal Commissioner of Vadodara Dilip Rana said he received representation from the residents of Motnath Residency in the Harni area and an appropriate decision will be taken after studying all relevant documents.

“I have just received a representation from the residents. I will check all the documents and then make an appropriate decision. We have a provision under which Hindus and Muslims are given flats in their respective areas. This applies to housing projects that are situated in disturbed areas. We have to check if this society falls in that category,” he said.

Motnath Residency, which has nearly 460 flats, is the VMC’s housing project for low-income group families under the state government’s Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana.

Residents have been protesting and writing letters to different authorities after a Muslim woman, who currently lives elsewhere, was allotted a house in 2018.

“Though I was allotted the house way back in 2018, I could not move in because of the opposition from other residents. Even today, there is no solution in sight. I currently live at the other place with my son,” she said.

Over 50 Hindu  residents of Motnath Residency protested near the society’s main gate on last Friday  demanding the allotment be cancelled.

Gujarat saw a series of Communal unrest and Godhra like incidents where 59 Karsevaks were burnt alive in  Savarmati Expresss on 27 February 2002. As an effect of such incidents, the mistrust between Hindu and Muslims still prevails as a scar.

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__Inputs from PTI.