Drive to retrieve KCR land begins

Old furniture market in Ghareebabad demolished


Our Correspondent December 12, 2018
Old furniture market in Ghareebabad demolished. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: Pakistan Railways officials, accompanied by Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and the Sindh Board of Revenue began an anti-encroachment operation on Tuesday to clear the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) track passing through District Central.

Scores of shops in the old furniture market in Ghareebabad were demolished, though shopkeepers had already vacated the shops themselves. The concrete floor of the market was also removed by heavy machinery to reveal the track buried three to four feet underground. Shades of shops and warehouses near the Lyari Expressway were also removed.

Meanwhile, residents of Quaid-e-Azam colony and Ghareebabad, living near the railway track, protested and demanded the provision of an alternative place. The protest ended when Additional Deputy Commissioner (DC) Wasimuddin conceded that they would not demolish the residential buildings for the time being.

Residents said that in 2009, Karachi Urban Transport Corporation had conducted a survey and allotted a unique number to each house. They said that they were assured in writing that they would get an 80-yard house in KCR Township, where they would be relocated to, in addition to Rs50,000 in exchange of every house and Rs50,000 and a shop in exchange of every shop. They were also assured provision of educational and medical facilities in the township. But now, they said, emergency notices to vacate the houses were being issued.

The residents said that there were more than 250 houses in two residential colonies, home to thousands of people, who could not possibly be resettled anywhere else in the matter of a few days. Additional DC negotiated with the protesters and assured them that only the commercial encroachments would be removed in the first phase of the operation and that they would not remove the residential encroachments till the next orders were received.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leaders, Kunwar Naveed Jameel and Ameenul Haq, also visited the residents near the track and assured them that the party was with them. They also promised that they would not let the demolition of residential buildings take place until alternative spaces were allotted.

While talking to media, they said that they successfully relocated the affectees of Lyari Expressway and added that the same will be done for those affected by the recent operation and alternative spaces would be provided first. They said that Karachi Mayor had presented the resettlement plan for KCR residents.

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They said that they will not let the residents of a 30year-old residency be deprived of their houses. They further said that if appropriate planning for the resettlement of KCR was not assured, this plan would turn into an inconvenience and Pakistan Railways (PR) and federal government will be blamed. They stressed that PR and federal government should form teams to survey the houses, collect information and provide alternative places.

Questioning the need for such haste on the part of the federal government, they said that the government had a term of five years and the land of KCR was extremely valuable.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12th, 2018.

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