New Delhi, May 12 (PTI) Abdul Najeeb and his pregnant wife had to move out of their home barefoot as their repeated pleas to let them collect their belongings fell on deaf ears as SDMC officials accompanied with police rolled in bulldozers to carry out an anti-encroachment drive in southeast Delhi's Madanpur Khadar on Thursday.

Within a few minutes, one of the walls of their home was destroyed and most of their belongings were lying under debris after the building next to theirs was demolished.

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The anti-encroachment drive not only left the residents furious, but also impacted the lives of those residing in the adjacent areas.

"It was 9 am when policemen knocked our door and asked us to move from the house as the next building would be demolished. We pleaded them to grant us 10 minutes just to remove our belongings but they denied," a tearful Amina, who is nine-month pregnant, told PTI.

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"The policemen assured us that nothing inside their house will be damaged and now everything is under the debris. We are a family of five and lived in one room," Amina said.

Civic authorities on Thursday carried out anti-encroachment drives in various parts of Delhi that sparked violent protests in the Madanpur Khadar area where the locals claimed that legal structures were bulldozed.

According to the police, the locals in Madanpur Khadar tried to stop the bulldozers and pelted stones at security personnel but were chased away.

While the SDMC removed illegal and temporary structures in Madanpur Khadar and Dhirsen Marg, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) took action in Rohini and Karol Bagh.

Another Kanchan Kunj resident Wasim Ahmed, whose under-construction building was razed, claimed that he had legal documents "yet it was demolished without any notice."

"The authorities have not served any prior notice for demolition of my building. I have the documents for the plot and tried speaking to them when the bulldozer arrived in this area. But, they were not ready to listen," Wasim said.

He also claimed that "the authorities and policemen previously took money from them, in order to allow them to continue construction."

The fresh actions are part of a series of anti-encroachment drives by the civic bodies since mid-April.

On April 16, the exercise to remove illegal structures was undertaken in Jahangirpuri. In the following days, it was carried out in areas such as New Friends Colony, Dwarka, Najafgarh and Lodhi Colony.

"I have been living here since 20 years. I have never witnessed anti-encroachment drives in this area earlier. How did the authorities suddenly realised there are illegal structures and demolishing them without any notice," asked Asif, whose brother's building was demolished in the area.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)