TOKYO: More than 1,000 police moved in and dismantled an underground shantytown early Wednesday, throwing punches and spraying a small group of holdouts with a fire extinguisher to disperse them.
The homeless men and their supporters screamed protests and hurled eggs as police converged from both sides on the cardboard-shack enclave in a downtown passageway that had been Tokyo's largest homeless community.
``We're not going to a concentration camp!'' the men yelled, referring to the temporary substitute shelter set up by the city.
Police said three people were arrested in the melee. They said the trio were not homeless themselves but protesters.
Protest organisers, including homeless advocates and leftist groups, bussed in some homeless supporters from a large community of day-labourers in Osaka, Japan's second-largest city.
Tensions between authorities and the homeless had escalated since the city announced last year it would clear out the cardboard shacks to build a moving walkway through the passageway, which links high-rises including City Hall with Shinjuku station, one of Tokyo's busiest rail hubs.
On Tuesday, about 150 shouting homeless people and their supporters stormed City Hall on Tuesday to protest the government's plan to move them to a shelter. The city's final warning to the homeless to leave nearly sparked a riot last week, and about 400 police had to be called in.
Wednesday's two-hour crackdown began at about 6 am (2100 GMT), just before rush hour. Commuters were turned away by barricades.
Hordes of journalists were on hand, and the police action was featured on all the morning news shows.
Merchants had long complained that the shack village was an eyesore and hurt their business. As police dismantled the shacks, megaphone announcements repeated that message.
``Because there are so many cardboard houses on this pathway, the way is blocked to pedestrians, and the bad smell is a nuisance for shopkeepers here,'' the announcement said.
Authorities promised the homeless hot meals, warm quarters and medical attention. But homeless advocates say the new shelter has prison-like rules, and criticise plans to tear the prefab accommodations down in two months, leaving the homeless on the street again.
Though small by the standards of many other cities around the world, the homeless community in the underpass had long been a conspicuous pocket of poverty in Tokyo, which has few slums.
Tens of thousands of pedestrians most of them office workers use the underpass each day, passing by the shacks, which ranged from elaborate structures with furnishings to coffin-size shelters.
About 200 homeless people live at the underpass and dozens more live nearby. Their number gradually increased over the past few years, due in part to a prolonged recession, but the homeless most of whom are jobless or eke out a living as day labourers get little public sympathy.
The most recent official estimate put the number of homeless in Tokyo, which has a population of about 12 million, at less than 3,500 dispersed widely throughout the city.
The estimate was based on a visual count conducted last year, and is generally believed to be low. Private welfare groups say there could be 10,000 or more homeless in Tokyo.- AP