“We developed the area into a model vendor market but now we have been driven out,” she said. “The mafia are in control. They have been attracted by the rise in prices in the area.” She said she and others have been repeatedly threatened by the “mafia”.

The police, she said, failed to register FIRs in most cases till the offices of the Lieutenant-Governor and Prime Minister intervened. She said it was virtually impossible for workers of Manushi Sangathanto enter Sewa Nagar.

She also demanded the formation of an independent commission, headed by the L-G, to identify “genuine vendors” in the area.

Kishwar said she had filed a criminal writ in High Court against the mafia last year. “Our project members have now begun filing petitions in the magistrate’s court to have FIRs registered. The Sewa Nagar market, which had come up as a novel hawking zone, has proved to be a failed experiment,” Kishwar said. “We asked then MCD Commissioner Rakesh Mehta to give us the dirtiest market and said we would develop it into a model vendor market.” The result, she said, was the Sewa Nagar project.