Katchi abadi removal: Three civic agency officials hurt by stone-pelting residents

The officials were clearing a new slum in I-10.

ISLAMABAD:

CDA officials and slum dwellers clashed on Monday during a demolition drive carried out by the enforcement wing of the authority at a newly-established illegal settlement in sector I-10/1.

As many as three staffers, including two supervisors and one sub-inspector from the enforcement wing sustained serious injuries when illegal occupants pelted stones on the demolition team after it started bulldozing 80 mud huts. The huts were established on a green area near street 17 in Sector I-10/1.

“It went ahead as normal in the beginning. But minutes before the end of operation, the illegal occupants engaged in harsh arguments and later the situation turned violent,” said Enforcement Wing In-Charge Mohammad Iqbal, who led the demolition drive.



He said besides the seriously injured staffers, a number of anti encroachment officials also sustained minor injuries. Iqbal said one of the seriously-injured officials had been hit on the head.

He said the settlement was illegally established in the “recent past” and the number of mud huts there had begun increasing with every passing day.

He said despite huge resistance and violence, the demolition team successfully completed the operation.

He said injured were rushed to the hospital and their medical reports were submitted to the Sabzi Mandi police for registration of a case against the attackers.

Iqbal added that the residents were mostly beggars, labourers, and their families.

He said that on Monday, the same demolition team also removed a small settlement comprising of 35 mud huts along the bank of a seasonal nullah in Sector G-10/2.

On April 14, an illegal settlement between the I-10 and H-10 green belt, comprising of around 1,500 mud houses, was removed by the authority.

The drive against illegal slums was initiated after the incumbent regime came to power last year, but only intensified after the Islamabad High Court in January took notice of the mushrooming growth of illegal settlements in Islamabad.



All Pakistan Alliance for Katchi Abadi (APAKA) Chairman Aasim Sajjad said bulldozing mud houses would not yield the desired results. He said instead of resolving their issues, such demolition drives were multiplying the worries of the poor.

He said the incumbent government did not have any rehabilitation or resettlement plan for these people. “If the government could approve lavish housing colonies for generals, judges, bureaucrats, and journalists, than why not low-cost housing scheme for these people,” Sajjad said.

He said Monday’s drive was tantamount to lack of political will and indifferent approach of the government towards the poorest of the poor.

Sajjad said APAKA would continue to resist any of the government’s move aimed to displace poor. He said a massive protest rally would be carried out on Wednesday to denounce the ongoing demolition drives.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2014.