Four settlements face eviction

CDA has issued red notices to residents of decades-old informal settlements

RAWALPINDI:

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has issued red notices directing residents of four major Christian informal settlements to vacate their homes immediately.

Authorities have warned that a grand anti-encroachment operation will be launched after Eid to demolish the settlements in H-9 Colony, Musharraf Colony, Miskeen Colony and Allama Iqbal Colony.

The colonies, which are nearly 50 years old, comprise around 1,760 housing units inhabited by both Muslim and Christian families.

Leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and community representatives have strongly condemned the move.

PPP Central Secretary-General Nayyar Bukhari, Central Secretariat In-charge Sibt Haider, along with Rashid Chauhan, pastors Qaiser, Zahid Iqbal, and Shakeel, as well as Punjab Assembly member Nargis Faiz Malik and Raja Shakeel Abbasi, announced that the notices would be challenged in the high court.

They described the eviction notices as regrettable and warned that the PPP would organise protest demonstrations against the action. The leaders said the Supreme Court had previously ruled that residents of informal settlements shouldn't be evicted without the provision of alternative accommodation.

"Forcibly displacing poor residents without resettlement would be an act of injustice," they said, recalling that hundreds of families had earlier been rendered homeless after the demolition of informal settlements in the Bari Imam area on the outskirts of Islamabad.

They further argued that the sudden issuance of eviction notices for four urban settlements, home to thousands including members of the Christian community, was contrary to principles of justice and reflected a continued erosion of citizens' and minority rights. The leaders demanded that the eviction notices be withdrawn.