There are 32 Tamil families living in 22 cents of government-owned land in Kozhikode, Kerala. They have been living there for four generations and now the Kozhikode Corporation has sent them an eviction notice asking them to vacate immediately.
The ancestors of the families in Kozhikode had settled in the region in 1950 when the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala were not formally divided. At that time, they were engaged in the work of manual scavenging. Following the ban of this practice in 2013, many lost their jobs. Recently, an eviction notice has been sent on behalf of the Corporation to evacuate the Tamil families currently residing in the land owned by the Corporation.
With hundreds of people having settled in this area, they lament that they have no other choice. They state that they have nowhere to go, and are suffering because they have now been rendered homeless by the order of the Kerala government.
They have now requested that the Kerala government allocate another place for them to stay as they have ration cards issued by the state government.