Securing land in Galiyat

Businessmen of tourist resort Galiyat are out on the road protesting an anti-encroachment drive the local administration is in the middle of launching. With tourists expected to come in droves during summer vacations, the shopkeepers see in the ‘untimely’ campaign a plot to deprive them of their means of earning bread and butter. Two general store owners of Nathiagali told reporters on May 20 that authorities had marked over 150 shops, 70 eateries and two mosques for demolition. They have been ordered by the authorities to raze the encroached spaces voluntarily within seven days. They recalled that they had brought the matter into the notice of the MNA and MPA of their area and informed them that all shopkeepers plying their trade on the Murree-Abbottabad Road had been leased the land they are now occupying but the authorities have now changed their mind. They accuse the Frontier Highways Authority and the Galiyat Development Authority of destroying their livelihood in the name of widening the roads.

The shopkeepers may have a point when they question the timing of the drive, since this is the peak season when they do roaring trade as Pakistanis from all corners of the country flock to the scenic valleys, but certainly one cannot condone their act of encroachment. They should have thought about the impending action when they had chosen to encroach the land which was not theirs to begin with. The authorities have every right to raze to the ground structures built on encroached spaces. But they should not do injustice to anyone.

Oftentimes it happens that some black sheep in the civic agencies trap the innocent ones as well in their sweeping drive against illegal structures. The campaign should be even-handed and must not target those who have not been guilty of occupying state land. Moreover, while there is no questioning the validity of the operation, we think the traders’ plea that this be postponed till the end of their business season is a proposition the authorities can look into sympathetically.

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

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