Contested spaces: Sports clubs hold protest against Clifton cantt board for football ground

Players saying they want to retain Gizri football ground.

KARACHI: The Cantonment Board Clifton’s move to establish its writ on a Gizri football ground was met with resistance on Wednesday when the Chandio village and Punjab Colony sports committee held a protest against it outside the Karachi Press Club with the backing of three political parties.

“We will go to court if needed,” said the representatives of the Gizri Mohammedan Football Club, Modern Cricket Club and Popular Hockey Club.



The 4.9-acre football ground that has turned into a contested space is located on the way to Sunset Boulevard from Punjab Chowrangi.

It is part of Chandio village, which its people claim is an old settlement dating back 200 years.

Hameed Chandio, Younus Chandio, Samiullah Khan Niazi, Imran Khan Niazi and Muhammad Yaseen said that this was the only ground for Delhi Colony, Punjab Colony, Chandio village, Gabol Colony and Madni Abad.

It had been used for decades by the three registered clubs. They gave the example of an Eid Gah ground in Delhi Colony that the cantonment board turned into a family park, preventing sports from being played there. “The CBC officers and their children have many places open to them like defence club, the gymkhana, the lawns of their homes, but this poor neighbourhood just has one ground.”

Last week, the K7 karate club that used the space under the football stands vacated the premises after it said the cantonment board sent staff asking it to leave.

The sports clubs brought children clutching cricket bats and footballs to the press club and shouted slogans against the cantonment board. “Shaadi hall na manzoor” was one of them, indicating that they feared that it had plans to make money off renting the space out for weddings.

The cantonment board said, for its part, that locals were charging people up to Rs10,000 to put up wedding tents and it would just charge Rs500.

“It was the cantonment officials who were taking that money,” said Imran Khan Niazi. “Why would we allow a wedding when we play in the morning? We’d have to clean up the mess the next day.”

The clubs said that the cantonment had sneakily started releasing dirty water into the ground as a tactic to try and get them to leave. They had been cleaning it up themselves.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 30^th, 2014.