Where should I go if they demolish my entire house tomorrow?” asked 87-year-old Catherine Dominic Gomes, a resident of Vidyavihar, whose residence was partially demolished, along with a compound wall, by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) N ward, ostensibly as part of road-widening work, on April 18.

While the civic body has been notices seeking the demolition of the house to facilitate the construction of the Vidyavihar East-West connector, Gomes had filed a court case against the order. “The civil court issued a stay order on the BMC notice on November 28, 2018, but the ward office keeps sending notices, and now they have actually gone ahead and started demolishing the house, probably to threaten us,” said Cecilia Noel DSouza, 58, Gomes’s only child.