Faridabad’s Khori village, a colony of encroached settlements in the Aravalli forests, looks like it was in the path of a storm. Bricks from demolished houses lie scattered all over, punctuated with toys, torn books, broken TVs, and shards of glass. Crushed two-wheelers peek out of the rubble, and families are seen trawling the debris to collect what can be salvaged.The Municipal Corporation of Faridabad (MCF) is razing thousands of homes in Khori Gaon following a 7 June Supreme Court order setting a six-week deadline for the encroachments to be cleared. There is no clarity on the exact number of homes in this settlement, which primarily comprises migrant workers. According to the district administration, a drone survey revealed there were 5,100 homes in the area. However, a PIL filed in the Supreme Court by one of the residents puts the number at 10,000. The narrative surrounding the Khori village follows two divergent themes. To the Supreme Court and the district administration, the residents are encroachers on government land comprising sensitive forests. They have been trying to demolish the encroachments for nearly a decade, but the residents are putting up a fight.The residents plead innocence and claim they were taken for a ride by a mafia that took money from them and “sold” them the land using fake documents. They accuse the police of being hand in glove with the alleged mafia and have laid down two conditions for moving out: Rehabilitation and the arrest of those who allegedly duped them.Haryana Police doesn’t discount the residents’ allegations. They say an investigation is underway into their accusations, but point out that the residents ought to have filed a complaint with police in the matter.The settlements in Khori date back to the 1990s. It initially housed workers of the quarry, but later expanded as more residents came in. When mining was banned in the region, the area where Khori is situated came under the protection of the Punjab Land Preservation Act (PLPA, which dates back before Punjab’s split and now applies to Haryana too). According to the law, no construction is allowed in the area without permission from the central government under the Forest Conservation Act.Since it’s an illegal settlement, Khori has faced demolition at the hands of the MCF multiple times over the years, an advocate with the Human Rights Law Network who is currently working on the case on behalf of the residents. The case first reached the judiciary in 2010, when a group called the Khori Gaon Welfare Association moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the demolition exercise. In 2012, another resident group, called the Khori Gaon Colony Kalyan Samiti, filed a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking regularization of their homes, or, alternatively, rehabilitation. The high court pronounced its verdict for both petitions in 2016.In 2017, the MCF moved the Supreme Court against the 2016 high court judgment. It argued that the villagers in Khori are encroachers and thus not eligible for rehabilitation. On 19 February 2020, the Supreme Court passed its first order in the case, calling for the removal of all encroachers from forest land. Following this order, 1,700 houses were demolished in September 2020. In January 2021, a PIL was filed by advocate Colin Gonsalves, representing five residents, in the Supreme Court challenging the cut-off date for rehabilitation under the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran Rehabilitation Policy, under which the residents expect to be rehabilitated. Gonsalves requested that the cut-off date be forwarded to 2015 from 2003, so more residents can be eligible. The demolition order was reiterated by the court in April and June. As it set the six-week deadline, the Supreme Court rejected petitions moved by residents to stay the demolition drive unless the question of their rehabilitation by the government was settled.