PATIALA: Fear of drug addicts, who continuously used to rob the visitors, has left the 'Rehan Baseras' in the city vacant. The mandatory norms of carrying Aadhar card or other identity proof is yet another obstacle for the poor and homeless to leverage these shelter homes meant for them.
Most of the beggars here continue to sleep on the pavements as they don't have Aadhar card or any other identity proof, which is a must for a stay here. The homeless also prefer to avoid staying here at night, especially with their female family members.
The beggars and the homeless have alleged that drug addicts rob them at night. Some other homeless persons have allegedly that they often lose their belongings after spending their nights at the shelter. As of now, no complaints have been made by the homeless and beggars against these drug addicts.
Meanwhile, the officials of the district
municipal corporation on Tuesday lodged a complaint with the police and alleged that some drug addicts torture them mentally by making phone calls and abusing them.
"An unknown person called us at night over the phone numbers provided on the signboard outside the night shelters. He started abusing at 11 pm and then again called after 30 minutes and repeated his act. He called for the third time, but I did not pick up the phone call. He was suspected of being heavily intoxicated. A complaint has been lodged with the police," said
Gora Lal, junior engineer in Municipal Corporation, who also looks after the night shelter homes.
There are around four shelters operating in the city -- at Nehru Park; near Kali Devi Temple, at
Dhobi Ghat and the fourth is near
Nehru Park. All these have been set up to facilitate the homeless, but despite all the efforts by the municipal corporation, the shelters continue to remain empty at nights.
"We have been putting all our efforts to bring the beggars and the homeless to stay here at night instead of roads and pavements. Once we even picked a number of beggars from the roads and ferried them in a truck to these shelter homes," said Gora. "The beggars say they find it hard to reach their begging venues from these night shelters and hence avoid residing here. Moreover, as identity proof is a must here, not every beggar carries it. No cases of robberies have been reported from these shelters yet," he added.
On the contrary, the homeless and beggars said that a lot of them were robbed by the drug addicts, following which they now fear to stay here.
AADHAAR
