Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday strongly criticised the reported demolition of Fakir Colony and Waseem Layout, two Muslim residential areas in Karnataka’s capital, calling the action shocking and painful.

In a social media post, Vijayan said the bulldozing of homes where Muslim families had lived for years exposed the brutal normalisation of what he described as “bulldozer raj”, a practice he said was earlier seen in North India and was now spreading to the South.

The Chief Minister alleged that entire families were forced out of their homes during harsh winter conditions and pushed onto the streets, leaving them with little choice but to flee. He said such actions amounted to governance through fear and brute force, where constitutional values and human dignity become the first casualties.

Vijayan expressed dismay that what he termed the Sangh Parivar’s anti-minority politics was being executed under a Congress-led government in Karnataka. He questioned how such forced evictions could be justified by a party that claims to stand for social justice.

He added that governments have a responsibility to protect the poor, ensure housing, and prevent people from being driven out of their homes through force, and called on all secular and democratic forces to rally together to resist and defeat this “insidious trend”.