Protests as buildings torn down in Gowalmandi

Owners to move court to stay demolition work around Government Degree College for Girls.

LAHORE:

Bulldozers and staff of the city district government and the revenue department tore down buildings near the Government Degree College for Girls, Gowalmandi, on Sunday as part of a plan to beautify the area, but they were slowed down by protests by residents and the owners of the buildings.

The operation began late on Saturday night. People soon began pelting the staff and vehicles with stones. They burnt tyres and chanted slogans condemning the Punjab government.

The operation was suspended, but resumed Sunday morning. Small protests continued alongside the demolition work all day, but a large contingent of police kept things under control.

Data Ganj Bakhsh Town Municipal Officer Ali Abbas Bukhari said that the government had either torn down or taken control of a total of 18 dilapidated buildings that were to be targeted in the operation.

He said the government had reached an agreement with some of the owners to build single-storey structures in place of the demolished buildings and hand them over to the owners. This would take some two months, he said.

A revenue official said that the properties actually belonged to the Evacuee Trust Property Board, which looks after the properties of charitable trusts founded by people who migrated during Partition and now looked after by the government.

He said the building ‘owners’ were actually people who had occupied the buildings and forged registration papers. He said that legally, the government could have the properties and land vacated by force.

Instead, it was planning to raze the old structures and build new ones, which would enhance property prices in the area and improve the surroundings of the college. “They should be thankful to the government,” he said. He claimed that the government had been negotiating with the building owners for a year before the operation.

The building owners insisted that the government had not given them notice before the operation. “Just to make the college look nicer, the government has destroyed our businesses and the livelihoods of hundreds of people who work with us,” said an owner, Muhammad Aslam. “They are not ready to listen to us.”

He said that the agreement that town officials were asking owners to sign had no legal value as it was on plain paper and not stamp paper.

Abbas Anwar, another owner, suggested that the operation had been started on Saturday night and continued on Sunday morning because the administration did not want to give the building owners a chance to move court to obtain stay orders against the demolition work. He said that the operation would cost the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz votes in the area.

“First they destroyed the historic food street due to political reasons. Now they are destroying the remaining businesses,” Anwar said. He said that he would move court to stop the demolition work. He said the single-storey structures the government said it would build to replace the torn-down buildings were insufficient as they would not generate as much income as the previous buildings.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 9^th, 2011.