Slum demolition: Charity school among structures torn down

Mobile school not given time to move; curiously, only one building was spared.

ISLAMABAD:

A lone mosque stands tall, jeering at the sprawl of flattened straw, thatch and steel that once gave shelter to hundreds of families.

The slum, which runs the length of the railway track and cuts through Islamabad’s industrial hub in Sector I-10, was bulldozed on Monday afternoon amid hushed claims of residents that stay orders against their eviction were being violated.

In the wake of the unscheduled operation, a branch of the Pehli Kiran School — which caters to low-income, migrant communities that inhabit slum areas and otherwise remain outside the scope of affordable education — was also demolished, despite a plea for time to remove the tin roofs that make up the modest structure.

“The school was not given enough time to take down the structure,” said a distraught Zainab Qureshi, the academic director for Pehli Kiran Schools’ eight branches.

“The mosque remains unharmed though,” she added.

According to the Capital Development Authority (CDA), all of the structures in the area are illegal and liable to be removed.

No time given

According to Qureshi, the schools move with their pupils and the removal of the slum would have resulted in a shift of premises, provided PK-6 was allowed to remove its nut-and-bolt structure.

“I was on the roof removing the screws when a bulldozer came,” shared Ghazanfar Ali, who is a head teacher at the school. “Without students, we are not a school. Our plan was to move with the community.”

He explained that the average cost of a school — a tin roof propped over poles set in concrete — was Rs200,000, in addition to books, straw mats, audio-visual aids and sporting equipment. The loss will have to be absorbed by the donation-fueled school due to lack of cooperation from the CDA, who demolished the slum this afternoon as part of their mandate to remove all illegal slums in Islamabad.

The operation was led by CDA Enforcement Deputy Director Mohammad Iqbal on orders from Chairman Maroof Afzal to recover 1,200 kanals on CDA-owned land in sectors I-10 and H-10.

An estimated 1,300 individuals live in the slum, also known as the Afghan Basti due to its large migrant population. While the occupied land belongs to the CDA, the authority’s indifference to the illegal occupants for over three decades has left a stain on its sleeve, with mounting pressure from activists to regularise the slums.

Earlier this month, the red-flagged Awami Workers Party and former federal minister for minorities J Salik rallied together to challenge the IHC’s orders, though little was achieved beyond lip service from local politicians.

Legality

“The case of katchi abadi demolition is sub-judice and the CDA is carrying out this action illegally,” said Tahira Abdullah, social activist and a volunteer trustee of the JAQ Trust, which runs the Pehli Kiran schools.

“We deserve to be relocated,” expressed Suhbat Khan, “But our livelihoods are here, at the Sabzi Mandi,” Khan explained that relocation to Rawat and its tributaries would make it economically unfeasible to travel to Islamabad to work in the market, pushing their families further into the cusp of uncertainty.

On the other hand, Deputy Director Iqbal said the CDA had “made several announcements in the katchi abadi and resumed an operation that started a month ago so that the community would have time to move willingly”.

He said the government does not have enough space to relocate everyone, “But I can assure you that most of them can afford to live in rented spaces. They just choose not to.” He then recounted an interaction with a resident who said he preferred the open skies to closed quarters.

According to Iqbal, no stay orders were violated. He added that “the mosque is unscathed”.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 15^th, 2014.