In Khargone, MP, bulldozers demolish house built under PM Awas Yojana

A house built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana was among those demolished on Monday by the administration in Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, following clashes nearby during a Ram Navami procession a day earlier.

Documents with the family show that the house on Birla Marg was registered in the name of Hasina Fakhroo. She inherited it after the death of her husband, the original beneficiary of the scheme.

This was among the 12 houses demolished in Khaskhaswadi locality as part of a drive against illegal properties. In all, 16 houses and 29 shops were demolished across four locations in the town following the clashes on Sunday.

Hasina’s son Amjad Khan, 35, told The Indian Express that the family had occupied the plot for more than three decades.

“Until 2020, we lived in a kuccha house on the plot. In 2020, when approval came under the Awas Yojana, we built a pucca house. We got ₹2.5 lakh from the government and saved another ₹1 lakh to get the house constructed,” he said.

Amjad produced a property tax receipt, an application to the tehsildar, an eligibility affidavit and a letter from Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan congratulating them on being a beneficiary of the scheme.

According to the family, Hasina was served a notice on April 7 (Thursday), three days before the clashes, asking her to produce details of ownership within three days or face demolition.

“I rushed to the district court on Friday with all the documents, from my father’s death certificate to the property tax document, to get a reply typed. But how could we submit it on Saturday or Sunday when all the offices were closed? On Monday, they came with the bulldozers,” Amjad said, showing the typed reply to the notice.

District Collector P Anugraha said the family was allocated money to build a house at a different plot, but had constructed it on government land worth ₹2 crore. “We have only removed encroachment from
government land,” he told the newspaper.

Asked about the timing of the demolition, the collector said: “Khaskhaswadi is one of the main rioting areas, the rest is up to the chargesheet.”