Villagers accuse city of seizing water as drought parches 'India's Detroit'

Other Indian cities, including the capital New Delhi and Bengaluru, are also grappling with water shortages

In the small village of Bangarampettai, 20 miles from Chennai, about 150 people last month “captured” a water tanker, breaking its windscreen and deflating its tyres before handing it over to a police station. People living on the outskirts of this metropolis are laying siege to tanker lorries because they fear their water reserves are being sacrificed so city dwellers, businesses and luxury hotels don’t run out. 

“Private tankers have fitted more than eight bore wells in our village and are indiscriminately extracting thousands of litres of water every day,” the villagers wrote in a letter to a government official in