Encroachment mafia outsmarts KMC

With the help of insiders, encroachers manage to give officers the slip.

KARACHI: The shopkeepers and traders of Saddar strongly criticised the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) as it emerged that, despite several attempts, their anti-encroachment drive failed to clear pavements and footpaths.

The president of Sindh Tajir Ittehad, Jamil Ahmed Paracha, while pointing at the hundreds of pushcarts placed around pavements and footpaths in Saddar, informed The Express Tribune that only last night the staff of KMC’s encroachment department, along with help from law enforcement agencies, had cleared this entire area of encroachments. “Basically these types of vendors have changed their strategy and now, instead of using makeshift stalls, they use push carts which they can move if they need to,” he said.

The KMC anti-encroachment department attempted several times during the past month to clear the pavements and footpaths in Saddar but allegedly some corrupt officials leaked this information to the encroachers ahead of the drive, he explained. “Whenever the anti-encroachment staff reaches the site to clear the area, they immediately run away and once the staff leaves, they come and set up their business again as before,” he said. “These encroachers are actually making a fool out of them,” he laughed. “The KMC should change their strategy and initiate their drive at peak hours, instead of carrying it out at night.”

The anti-encroachment department’s director Mazhar Khan said that despite several attempts, the drive has failed. “Someone from our department must have informed them of the drive. We will change our strategy and re-launch the campaign.”

Khan added that it is also responsibility of law enforcement agencies to employ permanent staff and establish camps in Saddar. The operation was carried out around Empress Market, Preedy Street, Zaibun Nisa Road and Abudllah Haroon Road.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2014.