The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on Thursday called for reports from the Housing secretary and Managing Director of Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) over a complaint that alleged that an engineer was threatening residents of Peters Colony to vacate the tenements, that too during the COVID-19 pandemic. SHRC acting chairperson D. Jayachandran called for a detailed report over the issue within five weeks.
According to the complaint by T.S. Muthuselvan, Secretary of Peters Colony Residents Welfare Association, TNHB executive engineer (in-charge) Gandhi was threatening residents of the area to vacate so that parts of the tenements could be demolished to give way for a commercial complex. Secretariat staff, government servants, frontline health workers, journalists among others, who were involved in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic were residing in the colony, it said.
When over 50 COVID-19 positive cases were reported in the colony, the executive engineer was making phone calls to threaten residents to vacate the tenements and was engaging goondas to force the residents to vacate, the complaint said. The executive engineer was making phone calls to threaten that he would disconnect the electricity and water connections of these tenements if the residents did not vacate soon, it said.
It sought for a direction to the government to withdraw from the attempts to evict them and to uphold the guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation and the Indian Council of Medical Research. As their children were studying in schools nearby and undertaking online classes, the residents pleaded not to force them to vacate until the end of 2020-21 academic year.