'Anti-poor' evictions trigger protest

Capital authorities accused of targeting working-class, ignoring powerful real estate interests

ISLAMABAD:

Representatives of dozens of katchi abadis, street vendors and other working-class organisation from across the federal capital recently held a press conference at the National Press Club the other day to demand an end to the wave of evictions launched by the Capital Development Authorities (CDA) in recent weeks and appeal to the superior courts to uphold their constitutional right to housing and livelihoods.

Addressing the press, leaders of the Awami Workers Party, All-Pakistan Katchi Abadi Alliance and Anjuman Rehribaan appealed to the Supreme Court and newly created Federal Constitutional Court to uphold the stay order given by the Supreme Court in 2015 in response to a constitutional petition filed by the AWP that put a moratorium on summary evictions.

AWP leader Alia Amirali said that the CDA and ICT have recently intensified so-called 'anti-encroachment operations' against both a host of working-class homes as well as street vendors, informal hoteliers and others whilst giving free license to big real estate moguls and big businessmen to build illegal housing schemes and commercial plazas.

She said that this brazen class war goes against all of the original legal injunctions and planning principles of the CDA ordinance, and that the Master Plan has become a complete travesty. She noted that an officer has been brought in from Lahore to spearhead the CDA's enforcement division and its anti-poor eviction drive in complete contravention of all rules.

Katchi abadi leaders Patras Joseph, Mir Azam, Muhammad Riaz, Rukhsana Qazi, Amanat Mashih, Ahmed Guddu and many others from sectors I-10, I-9, Muslim Colony Barim Imam, Saidpur village, H9, Alipur Farash, France Colony, 100 Quarters F6, G-8 Miskeen Musharraf Colony, G7 Allama Iqbal Colony and H11 Muzaffar Colony said that it is the working people living in katchi abadis who have built, sustained, fed and cleaned Islamabad since its inception and they have a right to the city which is enshrined in the constitution.

They noted that the AWP filed a petition in the SC in July 2015 when the CDA and then PML-N bulldozed a settlement of more than 20,000 Pashtun workers in I-11 and the Supreme Court not only entertained this petition but issued a stay order against any further summary evictions.

They said that the court had instructed the CDA as well as the federal government to demonstrate that it had a viable plan to deal with the housing demands of low-income segments of the urban population but in the intervening decade Islamabad and other big cities in the country have become increasingly hostage to real estate developers, speculators and land grabbers.