Life on Mehmoodabad Road — two sides of the same city
Contested police jurisdictions, overflowing slums define the lives of four DHA families.
The barricade separates Defence from Mehmoodabad. The Third North Street barricade facing Mehmoodabad Road (left) is a stark contrast to the side that faces the rest of DHA Phase I (right). PHOTO: EXPRESS
KARACHI:
Mehmoodabad road snakes through 1.3 kilometres and slices Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Phase I and Chanesar Goth in Jamshed Town into two disparate neighbourhoods in a perpetual face-off.
There are five DHA houses that face Mehmoodabad road. Built on 1,000 square yards or more, these houses were built 40 years ago when the army was selling subsidised plots to its personnel.
A few were sold to civilians for a higher turnover, which seemed like a good deal then because Phase I was one of the most coveted parts of Defence. Over the next four decades, that sweet deal soured for those five house owners.
The informal settlement across the road which outdates DHA - some say even Pakistan - reconfigured into concrete substandard housing and its refuse, gang wars and dead bodies spilled onto the last row of Phase I.
“Maybe we can get DHA to build a wall,” said one wistful occupant of one of the large houses cowering behind high boundary walls, conjuring images of the Berlin Wall and Mukhesh Ambani’s backyard overlooking Mumbai slums.
Her desire for residential apartheid was not borne out of elitism - just a basic need for security. Her family remembers how safe it was 15 years ago. The children would walk to the park with a grandparent and would spend the afternoon with the community gardener “planting flowers to make the park look pretty.”
As young adults’ their cynicism about their neighbourhood is worn like a badge of pride. Their DHA bubble was pierced a decade before the false sense of security surrounding the rest of the ‘posh’ neighbourhood slowly disintegrated.
“Two weeks ago, they found bodies in the abandoned hospital across the house,” claimed one teenager. “It wasn’t the first time they found bodies outside our house.”
“We’ve been trying to get the house owners to work together on a proposal that might convince DHA to make this area commercial so we can sell it to builders,” said the father. However, both the DHA spokesperson and their vigilance team director insisted they were not in a position to comment on commercialising five houses.
It is not like the family has not considered selling this property but no one wants to buy property on a broken road dotted with garbage heaps, and noisy mechanics.
Two doors down, a neighbour failed to sell his house, locked up and left the country. The remaining four houses try to restrict their activities to the day as they acknowledge “the border of Defence” is not safe after dark.
According to the DHA Director Vigilance Colonel Anjum, those streets were blocked after taking the residents association into confidence. He was unable to verify whether those five house owners had a say in the decision.
The Parsi colony which sits on the lower end of Mehmoodabad road fares slightly better. DHA has left them a guarded, gated entrance for vehicles with a Parsi-colony sticker.
The family is sympathetic towards their neighbours across the road, mindful of the terrible conditions they lived in. “There is a poor woman whose sons are junkies, poor souls, they steal our gate lights every now and then, what can she do?”
At least, no one has lobbed rocks into our house, said the mother. The others agreed, “They [the inhabitants of Chanesar Goth] are considerate even when they burn tyres outside.”
This apparent sense of learned helplessness is aided by fractured police jurisdiction. According to the DHA director of vigilance, those five houses are in the limits of Defence police station on Khayaban-e-Ittehad. The rest of the road comes under the jurisdiction of Mehmoodabad police station.
With two stations responsible for the 1.3 kilometre road, the neighbourhood has never felt less safe.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2013.
Mehmoodabad road snakes through 1.3 kilometres and slices Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Phase I and Chanesar Goth in Jamshed Town into two disparate neighbourhoods in a perpetual face-off.
There are five DHA houses that face Mehmoodabad road. Built on 1,000 square yards or more, these houses were built 40 years ago when the army was selling subsidised plots to its personnel.
A few were sold to civilians for a higher turnover, which seemed like a good deal then because Phase I was one of the most coveted parts of Defence. Over the next four decades, that sweet deal soured for those five house owners.
The informal settlement across the road which outdates DHA - some say even Pakistan - reconfigured into concrete substandard housing and its refuse, gang wars and dead bodies spilled onto the last row of Phase I.
“Maybe we can get DHA to build a wall,” said one wistful occupant of one of the large houses cowering behind high boundary walls, conjuring images of the Berlin Wall and Mukhesh Ambani’s backyard overlooking Mumbai slums.
Her desire for residential apartheid was not borne out of elitism - just a basic need for security. Her family remembers how safe it was 15 years ago. The children would walk to the park with a grandparent and would spend the afternoon with the community gardener “planting flowers to make the park look pretty.”
As young adults’ their cynicism about their neighbourhood is worn like a badge of pride. Their DHA bubble was pierced a decade before the false sense of security surrounding the rest of the ‘posh’ neighbourhood slowly disintegrated.
“Two weeks ago, they found bodies in the abandoned hospital across the house,” claimed one teenager. “It wasn’t the first time they found bodies outside our house.”
“We’ve been trying to get the house owners to work together on a proposal that might convince DHA to make this area commercial so we can sell it to builders,” said the father. However, both the DHA spokesperson and their vigilance team director insisted they were not in a position to comment on commercialising five houses.
It is not like the family has not considered selling this property but no one wants to buy property on a broken road dotted with garbage heaps, and noisy mechanics.
Two doors down, a neighbour failed to sell his house, locked up and left the country. The remaining four houses try to restrict their activities to the day as they acknowledge “the border of Defence” is not safe after dark.
According to the DHA Director Vigilance Colonel Anjum, those streets were blocked after taking the residents association into confidence. He was unable to verify whether those five house owners had a say in the decision.
The Parsi colony which sits on the lower end of Mehmoodabad road fares slightly better. DHA has left them a guarded, gated entrance for vehicles with a Parsi-colony sticker.
The family is sympathetic towards their neighbours across the road, mindful of the terrible conditions they lived in. “There is a poor woman whose sons are junkies, poor souls, they steal our gate lights every now and then, what can she do?”
At least, no one has lobbed rocks into our house, said the mother. The others agreed, “They [the inhabitants of Chanesar Goth] are considerate even when they burn tyres outside.”
This apparent sense of learned helplessness is aided by fractured police jurisdiction. According to the DHA director of vigilance, those five houses are in the limits of Defence police station on Khayaban-e-Ittehad. The rest of the road comes under the jurisdiction of Mehmoodabad police station.
With two stations responsible for the 1.3 kilometre road, the neighbourhood has never felt less safe.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2013.