Fighting for survival: Residents of a katchi abadi struggle to stay on

They have been given until January 15 to vacate the 1,200 plots they are occupying in I-11/4.

ISLAMABAD:

An unofficial meeting is being held within the walls of a small madrassa in Miskeenabad.  The sun beats down on a group of prominent male figures from this community in I-11/4, who are seen perched on charpoys, slowly sipping on cups of kehva that warms their hands. Their agenda is evident from the distress on their worn faces:  fight for the land they have called home for decades.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has served notices to the residents of the illegal settlement in I-11 to vacate the 1,200 plots, issued to various individuals and civil servants in 1990. The owners have come to collect and pressure is mounting on concerned authorities, through a National Assembly ruling last week, to remove all illegal settlements before January 15.

With a cloud of uncertainty looming above their heads, the residents of Miskeenabad, who have invested their sweat and labour in order to build the simple structures they call home, cannot help but feel jilted. The land they are accused of occupying is dispensable but their futures are not.

Fazal Shah and his four brothers are among those huddled in the madrassa. On a regular afternoon, Fazal Shah’s daughters and nieces attend a non-traditional school in the single-room adjacent to the courtyard where big decisions are underway.

Shah, who is a vendor at the nearby vegetable market where most of the other men work, is vocal in demanding that the 7,995 individuals living in Miskeenabad be readjusted.

Some forty years ago, Shah’s family migrated from Mardan to seek better employment opportunities, though unaware that the slum they embraced in order to put a roof above their heads was a temporary set-up for Afghan refugees, who now make up only 5% of the settlement. Haq Bahu, a slum community that preceded Shah’s migration was accommodated through an allotment of small plots in Ali Pur Farash and Shah is hopeful that such a bargain will greet his community.

A young girl watches as a WAPDA employee collects stolen electricity lines from Miskeenabad. Fazal Shah and his brothers discuss their plight in the courtyard of their home in the slum locality of Miskeenabad (top). PHOTO: MYRA IQBAL/EXPRESS

The CDA’s hands are tied. The authority’s inability to remove slum-dwellers in 1990 after it sold off the land to private bidders is a stain on its sleeve.  It cannot meet the standing value of the plots in order to compensate owners, nor can it afford to relocate its current illegal residents to another locality without creating yet another monster it is unequipped to deal with.

Those compensated with plots in Ali Pur Farash were occupants when the land in question was owned by CDA, but this is no longer the case, throwing its current residents into uncertainty.

Requesting anonymity, a CDA official handling the evacuation of the I-11 area explained that they have conducted various operations in previous years to remove such encroachments. But the residents, who come from areas inflicted with uncertainty and internal strife (such as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA), are reluctant to return to what they describe as “a life of poverty and injustice.”

Their living conditions in Miskeenabad, however, fall ironically close to this description. With no electricity, running water or gas, large families tend to share small spaces and barefoot children are exposed to the cold and to waterborne diseases. Only three of Fazal Shah’s nine children attend school due to economic constraints. Shah worries that their education will suffer if they are forced to move.

Middle aged Ali Gul, who is squatted on a charpoy close to the door, complains of “constant police manhandling and unprompted arrests”. Other men nod solemnly and chime in revealing the amounts they have paid to bail out friends and family.

According to Sabzi Mandi SHO Abid Ikram, crime tends to be higher in slum areas, though cases registered in neighbouring Miskeenabad and Benazir Colony, are mostly “minor issues such as theft”.

Higher authorities, however, who are stakeholders in the operation hold that the settlement is a security threat and that drugs and arms are commonly recovered from area.

While a less hopeful fate is dawning on the residents of Miskeenabad, the elephant in the room is perhaps the failure of law-enforcing authorities in guarding the land. Had CDA not been so lenient, the struggle for survival itself would have driven out those settled in the slum for over four decades.

A fresh CDA-recruit in the enforcement department admits that while this situation is a product of mismanagement, he wishes to correct this by returning the migrants to their respective cities.

“If we relocate them now, we will find ourselves in this same situation in another place in the future,” he said, explaining that since the land in question does not belong to CDA anymore, it is not within their jurisdiction to readjust those living on it illegally. While he hopes that residents will begin clearing out the area by the end of December, he is aware that with some, defeat will not come so easily.

Shah is unwilling to go back to Mardan. His livelihood at the vegetable market, and the future and security of his children is in Islamabad.”Our lives are here.”

His concerns essentially reflect why the CDA’s previous attempts to vacate the land have failed.  Illegal residents of I-11 are scheduled for transportation back to their hometowns with some monetary compensation and rations through NGO support.

There is a strong likelihood that most of them will choose to stay, if not in I-11, than elsewhere on the fringes of the city. Since the land, despite previous operations, has remained empty, the slum cycle has become a vicious one. For every hand pump installed or wall raised, the locals have been ‘taxed’ by the CDA. Instead of discouraging the residents, these so-called ‘taxes’ have only served to encourage the growth of the settlement.

“We have paid to build every single wall in this place,” Shah explains. “We have built a mosque and a school with our own pockets. Our votes have been exploited and time wasted.”

As Shah shares his resolve to remain in Islamabad, his voice quivers, “How long will we live with this uncertainty?”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2012.