She was restless as her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren were forced to spend the night under tents on top of the demolished structures and on the roadside for four days after the house was demolished.
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Ratnidevi Malahani (Head) had been under tension ever since the Tilathi Koiladi Rural Municipality-3 ward office in Saptari issued a notice to demolish the houses built on public land.
75-year-old Ratnidevi was worried about where to stay in the scorching sun and increasing heat after her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren became homeless. Last Monday morning, when ward chair Ramesh Kumar Mukhiya and others arrived with a 'dozer' to demolish the house, Ratnidevi kept urging them not to demolish the house until the place where the water would flow was managed. However, no one agreed.
Following the 7-day notice issued on Baisakh 21, the house of Ratnidevi's sons Parameshwara, Bindeshwar and Lakshmi Mukhiya, who have been living in Sakarpura tole for 4 generations, was demolished. She was restless as her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren were forced to spend the night on the demolished structures and on the roadside for 4 days. ‘After the house was demolished, the mother was very worried, and it was even more distressing to see the child suffering in the heat under the tarpaulin,’ said her son Bindeshwar, ‘She would not even eat. She would spend the night looking after the child.’
Ratnidevi, who had not been interested in eating for 4 days, passed away on Thursday night. ‘I reminded my mother-in-law a lot, but she could not reduce her anxiety,’ said her daughter-in-law Sushila Mukhiya, ‘In the last days, she was worried about where we would live and sleep.’
The villagers are in mourning after her death. The death of Ratnidevi, who was homeless, has added to the pain of the Sukumvasi family. When they reached there on Friday morning, they were expressing their anger by placing Ratni Devi's body in the courtyard where the house was demolished. 'We voted for a different party, and to take revenge for that, the ward chairman demolished the houses of 7 families including himself,' Bindeshwar said. 'Most of the houses here are on public land, but no one except us was demolished, and that's why we lost our mother.'
The notice issued by the ward office also states that the local government is responsible for protecting public land, and only Bindeshwar, Parmeshwar, Chandrakaladevi, Bhogendra Mukhiya, Domi Mukhiya and Om Prakash Mukhiya have been asked to vacate their land, while other public lands in the ward have not been vacated.
When the ward chairman was questioned about this, he said that only the houses and huts on public land that were left to be vacated two years ago have been removed. "This is not a revenge, we have already removed the houses and huts in other places," he said. "We have allocated a budget this time to build structures including temples in the areas that have been vacated." The ward chairman and head said that initiatives are being taken to manage the families whose houses have been demolished.
