Slideshow: Street performers defend community against bulldozers and high rise plans
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Paramilitary troopers and police are now everywhere in the streets of Kathputli (Puppeteers') Colony. -
Municipal workers are no longer servicing the area and garbage piles up on the streets. -
City offials have been meeting with residents to try to persuade them to move out. A flat screen monitor shows a rendering of high rises planned for the area. -
The Kathputli Colony is reputedly the world's largest neighborhood of traditonal artists and street performers. A resident addresses the media. -
Kathputli residents gather to protest home demolitions and forced relocations. Many do not trust government promises of discounted housing in the planned new development. -
Residents crowd around a bulldozer that has begun demolishing a wall to force it to retreat. -
Rubble from demolished homes turn into a layer of garbage left to accumulate to pressure residents to leave.
All photos by Bismillah Geelani. Hear/read his accompanying radio report.
See the Puppeteers’ Colony as it was prior to the start of demolition.
Click on any image to launch slideshow.
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- Paramilitary troopers and police are now everywhere in the streets of Kathputli (Puppeteers’) Colony.
-
- Municipal workers are no longer servicing the area and garbage piles up on the streets.
-
- City offials have been meeting with residents to try to persuade them to move out. A flat screen monitor shows a rendering of high rises planned for the area.
-
- Kathputli residents gather to protest home demolitions and forced relocations. Many do not trust government promises of discounted housing in the planned new development.
-
- Residents crowd around a bulldozer that has begun demolishing a wall to force it to retreat.
-
- The Kathputli Colony is reputedly the world’s largest neighborhood of traditonal artists and street performers. A resident addresses the media.
-
- Rubble from demolished homes turn into a layer of garbage left to accumulate to pressure residents to leave.
