Teams of the Government Railway Police (GRP), Railway Protection Force (RPF), Kolkata Police and central forces, armed with excavators, razed the kiosks of hawkers built on railway land at Dum Dum railway station late on Saturday night.
Refusing to heed the pleas of hawkers for more time and steps for their rehabilitation, Eastern Railway authorities claimed that the drive was carried out to clear alleged illegal stalls and structures.
Excavators and demolition teams dismantled stalls on platforms 1 to 4 and along station approach roads, apparently for passenger ease. The drive continued until the early hours of Sunday.
Hawkers, led by CPM's trade union outfit Citu, rushed to the station around midnight and tried to resist the drive and salvage whatever they could. According to eyewitnesses, several hawkers pleaded for an extension, claiming that railway officials had earlier in the day "verbally promised" more time.
However, the operation proceeded uninterrupted amid heavy deployment of police and central forces.
Many hawkers broke down as they watched their "sole source of income" being destroyed within minutes.
Chaitali Majumdar, who ran a food stall on platform 4, said it had been set up by her father nearly four decades ago and was her family's only source of income. "We knew shops on the platforms would be demolished and we got notices to this effect. If the government decides to remove the shops, we have no objection. But I want to ask what will happen to people like us who earn our livelihood from these shops," she said, demanding a rehabilitation plan.
As hawkers, backed by Citu, began protesting against their eviction, security forces resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse the protesters before resuming the drive.
A hawker breaks down on the platform of the Dum Dum railway station after her kiosk was demolished early on Sunday
Left leaders, including Citu's Gargi Chatterjee, former CPM MP Tarit Baran Topdar, as well as Somnath Bhattacharya and Mayukh Biswas, reached the station and pleaded with railway officials to postpone the eviction drive. However, according to them, railway authorities made it clear that “no illegal encroachment on railway land will be tolerated” and eviction drives would continue.
Biswas also attacked local BJP leaders who "misled hawkers" that they would get time to relocate. "Where are these BJP leaders now?" he asked.
Citu leaders said that ever since the eviction drives began, a hawker in Chakdaha died by suicide and another in Dum Dum had attempted to end her life by jumping on the tracks. After these incidents, they had urged the railways to give hawkers more time and formulate alternative livelihood arrangements for them before proceeding with the evictions.
“We sought one extra month. On Saturday, the officials gave us verbal assurances (to halt the eviction drive). But unfortunately, the drive began the same night,” Citu leader Gargi Chatterjee said.
CPM leader Somnath Bhattacharya called the eviction drive "inhuman and unprecedented". "Many of these hawkers had voted to bring the BJP to power in Bengal, but what did they get in return?" he said.
Left leaders alleged that the stations would now be handed over to "Adani-Ambani (corporate entities)". “On Saturday night, the BJP's double-engine government in Bengal bulldozed hawkers' shops in and around Dum Dum station. Using enormous state machinery, the brokers of Ambani and Adani have rendered poor and hardworking people completely destitute,” Biswas said.
Eastern Railway officials declined to comment on the allegations.