Vasant Kunj slum dwellers facing power, water outage for days
For over five days now, around 5,000 residents of Jai Hind Camp, a settlement tucked behind Vasant Kunj’s high-end residential blocks, have lived without electricity and water supply — struggling through Delhi’s humid monsoon nights in complete darkness, surrounded by stagnant rainwater and broken kutcha lanes.
The settlement is home to mostly Bengali-speaking migrants, many of them domestic workers, daily-wage labourers and sanitation staff, who originally came from West Bengal’s Cooch Behar district decades ago. Residents say their lifeline — electricity — was cut without any prior notice, and private water tankers arranged by desperate families were allegedly blocked by the police.
“Officials came with some police personnel and CRPF jawans, they cut the main power lines and told us to get aside. They didn’t explain why,” said Mohan, who has lived in Jai Hind Camp since 2001. “In this weather, with children and elderly people, even an hour without electricity is unbearable. Now it has been days.”
According to the locals, the two electricity meters that supply the settlement — officially registered in the names of a temple and a mosque — were disconnected last Tuesday on the basis of a Delhi court’s order. However, the residents claim they were given no individual notices and not given any chance to clear dues if any were pending.
“People here have valid Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards, ration cards — yet suddenly we are being called Bangladeshis or Rohingya just because we speak Bangla,” said Shyaam, another resident.
Many believe the settlement is being unfairly targeted due to its Bengali-speaking population and Muslim-majority households. “We work as domestic help and sweepers in these big houses in Vasant Kunj, but now we are treated like criminals in our own city,” said Fatima, whose children have been unable to study or sleep properly since the power was cut.
The court order that led to the disconnection cites the settlement’s “illegal” status — but residents say they have lived here for over two decades and complied with previous surveys, police checks and documentation drives.
“When the Delhi Police launched a drive last year to identify illegal Bangladeshis, we showed all our documents. Now, we are again being branded the same,” said Ahmed, a resident who has lived here since childhood.
Amid this crisis, families are forced to sleep on rooftops and open lanes to get some relief from the sweltering heat. “We have to lie down on the road or on the narrow lanes. Even food and drinking water is a problem. Tankers come around noon but we have to go to work early in the morning — how do we manage?” asked another resident.
The disconnection has sparked a political row, drawing strong condemnation from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Calling it an “alarming case of harassment”, Banerjee accused the BJP-led government of trampling on the basic rights of migrant workers.
“Speaking Bengali does not make one a Bangladeshi. These individuals are as much citizens of India as anyone else, regardless of what language they speak. How can we claim to be a democratic republic if the basic rights to shelter, water, electricity are being trampled upon?” Banerjee posted on X on Thursday.
Delhi