Victims or squatters?: In Pindi, eviction fears grip Mall Hostel residents

Rawalpindi Cantonment Board claims land is army-owned, occupants are illegally housed.


Mudassir Raja March 15, 2012

RAWALPINDI:


The residents of the old quarters at The Mall Hostel fear eviction at the hands of cantonment authorities despite having obtained a stay order from the court.


Their claim that the authorities are not ready to comply with the order is not entirely unfounded. A senior Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) official on condition of anonymity said the authorities had resolved to evict the occupants to make way for using the land for military purpose.

The occupants of some 20 quarters have been living in the main Saddar area for the last 60 years and were recently served with notices ordering them to vacate the quarters without delay. The notices were issued by the Rawalpindi station headquarters.

“After receiving the notices last June, RCB officials started visiting the [locality known as the] Mall Hostel and harassed the residents, urging them to vacate or face eviction,” said Muhammad Siddique, whose father started living in a small quarter here soon after partition.

The authorities have already demolished many houses and bungalows said to be owned by the Pakistan Army and have disconnected the electricity and water supply for the residents, he added.

Wapda restored the electricity supply after the residents filed a civil suit against the military authorities, saying that the army had no right to evict them, and obtained a stay order from the court last year. The water supply has still not been restored by the RCB administration, he added.

“The RCB authorities dug up the only street leading to the quarters and blocked the entrance. Recently, RCB staff visited our houses and registered a criminal case with the Cantonment police against some residents by claiming they were hindering official work,” said Siddique.

In a meeting with military authorities and RCB administration, residents were asked to vacate the quarters in lieu of alternate land at Karbala Gate, near Transit Camp.

“The residents refused the offer, as the authorities had backed away from an earlier offer,” said Afzal Hussain another resident.

Siddique noted that in their complaint with the court, they had maintained that the army had no proof of land ownership as a private citizen had also claimed to have purchased the land from the former Hindu owners, who had migrated to India.

The land totals about 20 kanals and the dispute involves six kanals, he added.

“We are ready to vacate the quarters only if the army proved its ownership. They should not evict us without any proof.”

RCB’s viewpoint

RCB Executive Officer Rana Manzoor Ahmed refuted this claim, saying that the land had been acquired by the army in 1959 for Rs1.15 million. He said that the occupants have no claim to the land, be it a title or position.

“These used to be government houses and the officials to whom the plots were originally allocated had illegally sublet them to these people,” he said.

On the matter of forced eviction, he said the RCB is negotiating with them and offering alternative locations for resettlement. “We are not forcing them out.”

When asked what the army intends to do with the land, Ahmed, who is also a former Rawalpindi military estate officer, said that there was and is an acute shortage of army accommodation in the city, with “over 7,000 houses needed for army staff in the city”, and that the land would be used to ease this requirement.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15th, 2012. 

COMMENTS (1)

Nawab | 12 years ago | Reply

Why doesn't the Army go elsewhere and leave these people in peace? What next they will take my house as well?

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