Senate standing committee asks CDA to prepare survey on illegally built houses. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Interior on Thursday directed the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to prepare a survey on illegally-built houses and colonies demolished for the construction of multi-storey buildings.
The meeting of the committee at the Parliament House, chaired by Senator Rehman Malik, discussed the demolition of buildings near Islamabad Airport, Kashmir Highway, Islamabad. The issue was raised by Senator Rukhsana Zuberi.
The senate panel ordered the CDA to take action against its officers who allowed the construction of these encroachments to take place in the past.
The chairman of the committee directed the CDA to submit the report within a month.
Malik also directed the authority to ensure that the informal settlements, where the residents were mostly Christians, should be provided with gas and electricity.
The committee ordered the CDA to ensure that homes in the informal settlements were not destroyed until the residents were provided with alternative shelters and issued an eviction notice three months in advance.
CDA Chairman Amer Ali Ahmed informed the committee that the demolition was part of the anti-encroachment drive. The members of the Senate panel observed that the anti-encroachment drive mainly focused on destroying the homes of the poor. Senators Javed Abbasi and Dr Shehzad Waseem endorsed the encroachment drive and said recovering government land was necessary but the drive should be equal for all.
Farishta case
The committee expressed its grief over the murder a minor girl, Farishta, in the Taramri area of Islamabad. Malik said he shocked to read a report that child abuse in Pakistan had increased by 11 per cent in 2018 in comparison with the preceding year with more than 10 children suffering some form of abuse every day in Pakistan.
He said it was high time to frame stringent laws to prevent child abuse in all forms.
Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Inspector General of Police Aamir Zulfiqar Khan while briefing the committee conceded that it was negligence on the part of police officers that FIR of girl’s abduction was not registered on the same day. He added that the SHO and other police officers responsible for the negligence had been booked, suspended and arrested.
The committee directed the official that there should be no delay in the presentation of forensic report of the case. Malik said forensic labs should be set up in each provincial police headquarters.
The committee also condemned the terrorist attack at a mosque in Quetta on May 24 wherein three people were martyred and over 19 others injured.
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