The Shelter Board today claimed in Delhi High Court that over 40 per cent of the homeless in the national capital were not only addicted to drugs but also involved in drug peddling and hence unwilling to shift to shelter homes.
"40 per cent of the homeless are drug addicts and are involved in drug selling. They (specially males) prefer to sleep under the open sky but not willing to leave their place, from where they are running such activities," the board told a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw.
The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) further told the bench that during the inspection along with NGO officials, as asked by the court on January 7, they found that a seven year old boy, Sulemaan, was carrying drug spirit.
An officer, who visited as many as 23 sites along with NGO Shahri Adhikar Manch Begharon Ke Liye, said that they have not found a single homeless at those places.
The officer contended that rickshaw pullers, who sleep in cold refused to go the shelter homes, saying their rickshaws would be stolen if they leave the place where these are parked.
The Board claimed their officials were even abused at Hanuman Temple in Connaught Place here by the homeless on being asked to move to shelter homes.
But DUSIB's claim was opposed by the NGO, which alleged misbehaviour of the Board officials with the homeless.
To this, the court came down heavily on the NGO and asked whether they tried to persuade the homeless to shift to the shelter homes. It also wanted to know whether any video recording of such incident existed.
The court took the NGO to task for only "making speeches" and not doing actual work and said it would pass an order on the material available before it.
