Karachi park encroachments to be removed in 30 days: CDGK

City government assures Supreme Court of operations against illegal encroachment in the city's public parks.

ISLAMABAD: The Karachi city district government assured the Supreme Court on Wednesday that all illegal encroachments in the city’s public parks would be removed within a month.

This was stated by the City and District Government Karachi’s (CDGK) lawyer to the court, which had ordered the city government to start an operation against illegal occupation of parks.

The lawyer told the three-member bench of the court hearing the case that the encroachments would be removed within 30 days.

In today’s hearing, Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday said that illegally built mosques and imambargahs coud not be considered legitimate construction.

Former Karachi Nazim Niamatullah Khan was also directed by the court to cooperate with the city government in helping to remove the illegal buildings.

In the last hearing, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had asked the city government to start the operation.

An operation against encroachers had to be called off last week after bulldozers and equipment to remove encroachments were blocked by encroachers with trucks loaded with sand and gravel by the residents of Gharibabad.

The residents and shop owners refused to budge until alternate places were allotted to them.