“All the belongings I have now are what my little boy could pull out from the rubble with his bare hands,” said Poonam Devi (name changed, 35) pointing to the nearly empty shelves in her rented room in Lal Kuan, an informal settlement at the edge of Delhi. Her son Akash (name changed, 10) was making tea and dinner after she had come back from a long day working as a daily-wage laborer. Poonam, who builds houses for others, found her own house in Khori Gaon demolished in July 2021. “The bulldozer had razed down the neighbor’s house, it was my turn next.” The Faridabad Police arrested her while she was protesting the demolition of her house and took her to the Faridabad Police Station. Akash didn’t know what to go after – his house or his mother. He lived amidst the rubble for four days, shivered in the rain,…

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