Byculla hostel’s blind inmates left to fend for themselves on streets

Salvation Army-run hostel temporarily closed during lockdown in June, now shuts shop, leaving 40 inmates with nowhere to go

The Hostel for Working Blind Men in Byculla has permanently evicted all its inmates, claiming paucity of funds. However, the now-displaced occupants and an activist who is fighting for their cause claim that they were “thrown out fraudulently”. Since June, when the hostel was closed owing to the pandemic, several inmates had returned to their hometowns or were staying with their family in the city, while some took shelter on the footpath.

You are instructed to kindly vacate the hostel premises…till further notification to restart normal activities from the authorities,” the June 26, 2020 communication had stated. However, the hostel, run by The Salvation Army, never reopened. Instead, the administration sent a letter on January 5, informing more than 40 men that what used to be their home once has been shut down permanently.

The letter, undersigned by Lt Col General G Y Pathare, the secretary for Program Admin at The Salvation Army, reached the inmates only on January 14. Interestingly, the hostel administration had met a few hostellers a day after sending the letter, but made no mention about either the letter or the closure.

At the January 6 meeting with the inmates and activist Cyril Dara, Pathare had asked them to write a letter requesting them to reopen. The very next day, 25 hostellers undersigned a letter and gave it to the administration.

'Something doesn't add up'
Mohammad Javed Sheikh, 39, who works at a nationalised bank and was living at the hostel since 2004, told mid-day, “When we reached the hostel on January 6, the watchman shut the gates and said the authorities were away on a holiday. But when we didn't budge, some seniors came out and invited us in. They asked us to write a letter requesting them to reopen stating that we are in trouble and cannot find accommodation anywhere else. First of all, how are blind people supposed to write a letter? Still, we managed. But on January 14, I received a letter stating that the hostel has been shut down because of ‘unavoidable circumstances’ and the management asked us to make our own arrangements… There is something that doesn’t add up."

Activist Cyril Dara with Javed Sheikh at the Salvation Army's Hostel for Working Blind Men in Byculla, on January 5. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

Shamsher Mansoor Alam Sheikh, 35, asked, “If the decision to permanently shut down the hostel was already taken, then why wasn’t the letter handed over to us directly when we met them on January 6? Why were we asked to write the letter?" He said, "This is downright cheating."

'A different motive'
Dara said, “The hostel has thrown out these people fraudulently. First they evicted them taking advantage of the pandemic, and then announced the permanent closure without giving any concrete reason. We knew the hostel had funding problems…but now it looks like there was a different motive.”

Speaking with mid-day, Pathare said, “The hostel was closed temporarily at first…but later  the management decided to shut it permanently... because we could not manage enough funds to keep it running.” He also confirmed the January 6 meeting with the hostellers. Asked why the inmates were not informed about the closure and the letter on January 6, he said, "I cannot speak on the matter."

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