Villagers of Islamabad protest FGEHF’s efforts to buy their lands

Residents of Tamma, Mohrian block Park Road for hours, vow to resist land acquisition

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of villagers of Islamabad on Tuesday took to the streets to protest against efforts by several government authorities to convert their ancestral lands, located in zone IV of the capital, into housing schemes for the rich and influential.

Residents from the Mohrian and Tamma Villages blocked the Park Road near Tarlai Chowk for several hours on Tuesday morning to push back against efforts by the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF) to acquire land in their villages to construct houses for members of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA).

The villagers, led by local leaders and Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) Mian Aslam, came onto the roads after officials of the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration, the Capital Development Authority (CDA), and the FGEHF went to the villages for demarcating land for acquisition.

The protesters burnt tyres on the road and chanted slogans against the government. They vowed to resist all efforts by the authorities to deprive them of their land.

“The housing foundation wants to take our land and build a housing society for lawyers of the supreme court,” complained Muhammad Rafeeq who is a local union councillor.

“We have lived here for centuries and now they are telling us to leave… they even have not even paid the pittance they promised us when they acquired some villages in the area decades ago,” said Rafeeq, and pointed towards a sprawling apartment complex which now houses families of employees of a security institution.

He pointed out that land had been acquired for as little as Rs100 per kanal while its value today had grown exponentially. The ICTA officials reportedly tried to negotiate with the protesters but to no avail.

The protesters continued to block the road. Aslam, while addressing incensed residents of the two villages, said that they would continue their protests and thwart all efforts to deprive them of their lands.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2017.