A septuagenarian widow suffering from cancer is running from pillar to post knocking on the doors of senior police officials to get back her small photo frame making workshop that has been operating for the last 25 years from an industrial gala in Kalina which was forcibly taken over by local goons.
The local police refused to take her complaint on Sunday and she had to visit the police commissioner's office in Crawford Market despite her frail health to seek justice.
77-year-old Nisreen Unwala has been made to run from local police beat chowky to Vakola Police station to the Police Chief Sanjay Pandey to seek justice for getting back her livelihood. She even camped outside the Mumbai Police Commissioner's office on Monday afternoon and waited for 8 hours to meet the police chief about the forcible occupation of her workshop at Chunawla compound, Kalina Chunabhatti, Santacruz by local goons.
The illegal squatters led by Taufiq and 4 to 5 ladies took forcible possession of her workshop after breaking the locks claiming to be the new owners of the workshop.
Nisreen caught the police chief leaving for the day at 9.30 pm outside his office and pleaded for his return back of her dispossessed workshop. “Commissioner Pandey sir was very kind and heard my complaints. He asked his staff to look into my grievances and spoke to the Vakola police station to take my complaint. I visited the police station on Tuesday but was again made to sit for 10 hours despite my bad health and told to come again the next day,” Nisreen said.
She again visited the Vakola Police Station on Wednesday with all her documents to prove her late husband was the tenant for the last 25 years making photo frames and glassworks at the Chunawla compound. She took over the workshop in 2014 along with her son in law after her husband's death and was paying regular rent to the landlord Harish Mehta.
“We have taken her complaint and filed FIR against the accused. The investigation is going on and strict action will be taken as per law,” said police inspector Rajesh Shinde about the case.
Nisreen is adamant that she wants her workshop back and is tired of the legal hurdles and paperwork demanded by the police. “My bread and butter were snatched. My workshop is forcibly taken over by strangers who claim to have purchased it but police are not helping me to get back my livelihood and all the equipment, materials and goods stored worth about Rs 15 lakhs stored in the workshop,” Nisreen complained.
Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey had assigned an inspector rank nodal officer to handle housing society and property-related disputes in Mumbai last month. But for cancer-stricken senior citizens like Nisreen, it is a long lonely battle against the property mafia looking to evict poor tenants for the redevelopment of prime real estate in Mumbai.
