Delhi: Turkman Gate

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1976

Himanshi Dhawan, April 29, 2022: The Times of India

In April of 1976, Rukhsana Sultana, a socialite turned social worker, had started a family planning camp in Dujana at Turkman Gate on the instructions of Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi. There were “targets” to be met and eyewitness accounts speak about how men and women in the Muslim community were pressured to get sterilised. As protests against this coercion mounted, Gandhi sent in bulldozers. About 20 people died according to official estimates and hundreds of homes were razed.

But the media had been shut out so there was no evidence of the havoc that had been wreaked in the area. TOI archival reports from 1978 document how the Turkman Gate demolitions were part of a larger “vision” to rid Delhi of slums and targeted at opposition supporters. 
A fact-finding committee set up by the Union home ministry found that “demolitions were carried out without due regard to the provisions of relevant laws. The demolitions were carried out by the DDA which had no jurisdiction to do so in certain places.”