Hyderabad: As many as forty houses in Ambedkar Nagar slums in Hyderabad were demolished by Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) on Monday morning to make way for construction of new houses under the government’s 2BHK scheme.

According to the residents, after 250 houses in their neighbourhood were razed to ground eight months ago stating similar reasons, they moved High Court. They informed the court that they do not want to suffer the same plight and received an interim order stating “the petitioners should not be dispossessed following due process of law.”

However, following a GHMC notice stating “the government has the right to redevelop the land according to its rules”, the houses were brought down around 6 am on Monday without alerting the residents.

Mahesh, a resident said, “As I woke up, several police officials dragged me out of my house. They did not show any kindness towards my family members. Within minutes, our house was in shambles and we were shown the way to the road. How is this fair by any means?”

Meanwhile, other residents said that since the GHMC notice came around late evening on Saturday, and Sunday was a public holiday, they did not even get the required time to save their houses.

Shravan, a local leader from the area said, “We did not get any support from the RDO and the patidars on whose land our houses are built. Our houses are 60 years old. It is unbelievable that we have been brought to the streets and have nowhere to go.”

When Assistant City Planner, GHMC, Panjagutta was contacted, he said, “There are only a handful of the slum dwellers who are opposed to the construction of 2 BHK houses. We will provide them temporary accommodation in function halls. It will take over a year for us to build houses. They will have to look for alternative accommodation until then.”