AT LEAST two people, including a seven-year-old boy, were killed when thousands of shopkeepers rioted in Delhi yesterday in protest against attempts to shut down illegal businesses in residential areas.
Much of the Indian capital ground to a halt as police used teargas and batons to disperse the crowds, who set up roadblocks and lit bonfires in some of the worst street violence in the city in recent years. Dozens of police were injured and more than 100 people were detained. The riot highlighted the mounting tension between business and government in Delhi, where a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy is struggling to keep pace with breakneck economic growth. Most businesses are banned from operating in residential areas under antiquated zoning restrictions dating back to a city master plan drawn up in 1961.
Hundreds of thousands of grocery, restaurant and other businesses have opened in the neighbourhoods as Delhi’s population ballooned from five million in 1961 to 14 million today.
Tensions have been rising since the state-run Municipal Corporation of Delhi began sealing thousands of shops after an order by the Supreme Court last year. The corporation agreed this month to recategorise 2,000 residential streets as commercial, but the Supreme Court insisted that businesses on the roads should be closed as well.
The Confederation of All India Traders, which claims membership of a million in Delhi, responded by calling a strike to protest. “We are being made the scapegoats for the shortcomings of the Government and we will not tolerate it,” Praveen Khandelwal, the confederation’s general secretary, said.
But the strike turned violent in the poor neighbourhoods of Seelampur and Bhajanpura, where many residents depend on the illegal commercial outlets for their livelihoods.
Sheila Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi, appeared to have no solution to the crisis when asked what the Government’s next move would be.
“Why don’t you ask them? We’re thinking about it. When we come up with something we will let you know,” she said. The Government, which is controlled by the ruling Congress party, is facing criticism from all sides over its handling of the crisis.
