Capital authorities accused of targeting the working class and ignoring powerful property interests
ISLAMABAD:
Representatives of scores of katchi abadis, street vendors and other working class organizations from across the federal capital recently held a press conference at the National Press Club the other day to demand an end to the spate of evictions launched by the Capital Development Authorities (CDA) in recent weeks and appeal to the superior courts to uphold their constitutional right to housing and livelihood.
Addressing the press, leaders of the Awami Workers Party, All-Pakistan Katchi Abadi Alliance and Anjuman Rehribaan appealed to the Supreme Court and the newly formed Federal Constitutional Court to uphold the stay order given by the Supreme Court in 2015 in response to a constitutional petition filed by the AWP, which imposed a moratorium on a moratorium.
AWP leader Alia Amirali said the CDA and ICT have recently intensified the so-called ‘anti-encroachment operations’ against both a host of working-class homes as well as street vendors, informal hoteliers and others, while giving free license to big real estate moguls and big businessmen to build illegal housing projects and commercial spaces.
She said that this brazen class war goes against all the original legal injunctions and planning principles of the CDA Ordinance and that the Master Plan has become a complete travesty. She noted that an officer has been brought in from Lahore to head the CDA’s enforcement wing and its anti-poor eviction drive in complete violation of all rules.
Katchi abadi leaders Patras Joseph, Mir Azam, Muhammad Riaz, Rukhsana Qazi, Amanat Mashih, Ahmed Guddu and many others from sectors I-10, I-9, Muslim Colony Barim Imam, Saidpur village, H9, Alipur Farash, France Colony, 100 Quarters F6, G-7 Colony I and Muslim Colony I. H11 Muzaffar Colony said that it is the working people living in katchi abadis who have built, maintained, fed and cleaned Islamabad since its inception and they have a right to the city enshrined in the constitution.
They noted that the AWP petitioned the SC in July 2015 when the CDA and then the PML-N bulldozed a settlement of more than 20,000 Pashtun workers in I-11, and the Supreme Court not only accepted that petition but issued a stay order against any further summary eviction.
They said the court had directed the CDA as well as the federal government to demonstrate that it had a viable plan to address the housing demands of low-income segments of the urban population, but in the intervening decade, Islamabad and other major cities in the country have increasingly become hostages to property developers, speculators and land grabbers.
