NAVI MUMBAI: Residents have complained to the civic body that Guru Nanak garden in sector 19, Nerul has become a haunt for drunks and drug addicts after dark.

“As the sun sets, you can see youths huddling together in a corner drinking or smoking. A few people tried shooing them away but they keep coming back,” said Risshi Shekar, a Nerul resident.

She said that these men often leave behind garbage and morning walkers have to pick up bottles and cigarette butts after they have left.

This, however, residents said is a recent phenomenon after lamps , which lit the garden suddenly disappeared.

“Currently there is just one lamppost in the middle of the park , which is not good enough,” said another resident Arati Chauhan. There are just a bundle of wires and a concrete duct where the lampposts once stood.

NMMC officials said that they had removed these lamps for aesthetic reasons. “We are replacing these lamps with decorative ones. There will be 25 lamps in the garden soon and there will be enough light so the senior citizens don’t feel unsafe,” said an official from the garden department.

He also added he would talk to the police and ask them to stop at the garden during their patrol to chase these men away.

