Click to play videoMumbai: Just days after the anti-North Indian riots, a Muslim family has been denied basic amenities like water and electricity by the housing society they live in.
For the last two years, Afzal’s family lives in their Andheri home without water and power connections because members belonging to the majority — the Jain community — of the Khimavat Housing Society object to their religion.
“They say they are more in number and that I’m alone,” Afzal says.
The family gets water in their fifth floor flat from a solitary BMC pipe. The society office bearers, who don’t even live there, have persuaded other residents to not help the family in spite of the fact that Afzal has already paid Rs 1.25 lakh for utilities.
"They kept delaying restoring the facilities for five months. Then they said I’ll have to pay another one lakh,” Afzal complains.
In the last two years, the family has made the rounds to the authorities while trying to reach an agreement with the society. Society law experts say the law is clearly on the Afzal's side.
"It is not an injustice under the essential commodities act and it is a criminal offence," Chairman Maharashtra Society Welfare Association Ramesh Prabhu says.
Afzal’s case is not an isolated one in Mumbai. Housing societies across the city remain divided on the grounds of religion, language and even food preferences, and actively try to prevent the entry of those who do not conform to the ground rules.
In a city divided by communal and regional differences, the Afzal’s are not the only family suffering in darkness — a darkness that can only be removed by enlightened minds.
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