Police said that the accused, who descended on the house of Florry Fernandes with hammers and shovels to carry out the damage, also broke her furniture and electronics goods.
Ten people have been arrested for allegedly assaulting a 64-year-old woman and demolishing her house at Laxmi Nagar in Ghatkopar.
Police said the accused, who descended on the house of Florry Fernandes with hammers and shovels to carry out the damage, also broke her furniture and electronics goods. The incident took place on Friday afternoon.
According to Fernandes, the group of attackers was led
by one Madhukar Kharat who allegedly wanted to usurp the house.
The victim said she was alone at home when they started banging at her door and demanded that she stepped out. “Upon hearing a lot of commotion outside, I peeped through the window and discovered about 10 people standing outside with hammers and shovels. I declined to open the door,” Fernandes said, adding that after her refusal, they began to break it open with the hammers.
“But when I saw them hammering the walls of my house, I had to open the door,” Fernandes recounted, adding that she was dragged out of the house by two women, who tied her to a chair and thrashed her.
Philomena Mathias, Fernandes’s daughter, said the demolition was planned by Kharat who had been harassing them to vacate the house ever since their area was declared a part of the SRA scheme.
According to the police, Fernandes had purchased the house from one Kolanidhi Anjaiah in April 1994. Kharat, who wanted the possession of the property, had sold it to Anjaiah.
Mathias said: “Kharat has been approaching us since 1995 and offered us Rs2-3 lakh to vacate the house. But we refused to do so because we didn’t know who he was and didn’t want to deal with him.”
The victim’s family said that when Kharat realised that the house would not be sold off to him, he started threatening them because he wanted to be a beneficiary of the SRA scheme.
Fernandes then filed an FIR against them on Friday in the Pant Nagar police station. They were arrested on Saturday and remanded in custody till September 7. “We will produce them in court on September 7,” AM Jagdale, senior inspector, said, adding that the dispute should have been settled in court.
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