Kamini Gupta (name changed on request), a former dancer/singer and waitress at a Thane bar has been issued an ultimatum: leave her rented house in the Masjid Galli lane of Kisan Nagar No 3 by Tuesday evening, or else. Local residents, backed by the Shiv Sena, are up in arms against bar girls like her and want them out of the area in Wagle Estate immediately.
Gupta is among the 2,500 bar girls who are being forced to evict their homes after residents of the area turned against them on Monday alleging they are involved in prostitution. So far, over 1,000 bar girls and their families have fled the locality.
Assisting residents in their campaign to “cleanse “ their locality is the Shiv Sena and its corporator Ram Repale, who has now issued an eviction deadline of June 11. Curiously, the police is staying away from the controversy, hiding behind the familiar excuse of no “formal complaint” being booked against anyone.
“The house owner is not ready to give us back our deposit of Rs 10,000 and the (Shiv Sena) activists have asked us to leave the area before evening,” alleges Gupta, who has been working as a bar girl since the last four years, ever since her husband lost his job. “Where am I going to go with my two children now?”
By evening, Gupta along with her two children had shifted to her relatives’ residence in the Kisan Nagar 1 area of Thane.
So far, more than 80 per cent of bar girls seemed to have moved out of the Kisan Nagar area. Some have gone to other areas of Thane, others have moved to Bhayander or Andheri. Buildings like the Mata Darshan and Murlidhar Verma, all packed till a day ago, are now almost empty.
The Kisan Nagar area is popular among bar girls since the rents are cheaper than other areas of Thane. Also, Mulund and its many dance bars are nearby.
More than a 1,000 bar girls have fled Kisan Nagar, claims Repale triumphantly, adding that they are being ably helped by residents who are identifying families to target.
“They indulge in prostitution. Imagine someone knocking at your door at 2 am in the night assuming you are a bar girl,” said Kavitha Save, a resident. “Plus, there are regular fights here which is taking a toll on our children.”
“Let them engage in prostitution, it’s a question of their livelihood, but they should not do it in our locality,” said another resident, Hritika Thakur, who doesn’t want her children to be “influenced” by them. “The entire atmosphere is being vitiated because of them,” said Jeetendra Nishad (25), a PCO operator.
But the bar girls have a different story. “Not all bar girls indulge in prostitution. We are getting affected because of other bar girls who are in that business,” said one on condition on anonymity. But she too is planning to leave the area along with her two children.
The Sena remains adamant. “We have still not shown them our Sena style. People here have complained to the police but nothing happened so they came to us. We are supporting the locals in flushing out the bar girls,” said Repale.
“We have given them (oral) ultimatum of evicting their rooms by June 11 or else we have to use our style,” he added.
The police have stayed out of the row. “No one has the right to force anyone to evict,” said Madhu Shinde, Joint Commissioner of Thane Police. “But someone should come forward and register a complaint. Here, no one is coming forward.”