Unexplainable and unjust: CDA silent on other encroachments

Mosques, seminaries, govt offices and businessmen continue to occupy state land.

ISLAMABAD:

The city managers announced on Sunday that the demolition of the capital’s largest informal settlement — the Afghan Basti at Sector I-11 — has been completed.

In the recent days, the city administration has made much hue and cry about illegal settlements and encroachments on public land, however, the whole saga has left behind several unanswered questions.

The most deprived and exploited segment of society — labourers and internally displaced persons — experienced the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) wrath last week but does the issue of encroachments start and end with katchi abadis?

Several religious groups, law-enforcement agencies, politicians, industrialists and property tycoons, among others, continue to occupy properties worth billion of rupees without any fear of the state.

Illegal seminaries

In the past, the police found and shared with the media how individuals associated with illegal religious seminaries facilitated and provided lodging facilities to terrorists who carried out attacks in the federal capital.

A survey of the police’s Special Branch in March 2015 revealed that there were some 160 illegal religious seminaries within the territorial limits of Islamabad that had been established on encroached land.

The seminaries are being run by representatives of four major schools of Islamic thought — Deobandi, Barelvi, Ahle Hadith and Shia.

The survey stated that there are a total of 401 seminaries and day-scholar schools within the city’s territorial limits with the majority of them running under the aegis of the Deobandi school of thought.

Some 31,796 students are enrolled at these 401 seminaries. Of them, 17,419 belong to Islamabad and Rawalpindi, while 14,377 hail from other parts of the country, mainly from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and the tribal areas.

The administrations of the legal seminaries have also encroached upon significant chunks of land at their respective premises.

Illegal mosques

In Islamabad, a number of clerics have also taken advantage of their social power to grab lucrative pieces of state land in the name of religion.

The construction of mosques on illegally-occupied state land has been a common practice in the capital. No civic agency or state institution dares to take action against these ‘holy cows’.

A recent CDA survey estimates that out of the 492 mosques within the municipal limits of the CDA, 233, or 47 per cent, are illegal, built on state land along seasonal streams, right of way of major roads, private land and CDA-acquired land.

Even the city’s green belts have not been spared, as some 45 illegal mosques are built on these tracts.

Meanwhile, several of the 259 ‘legal’ mosques are working within grey areas of the law.

Roads, streets under occupation

On January 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of Pakistan was informed by the CDA that law-enforcement agencies and other government departments have virtually turned 216 roads, streets and footpaths as ‘no go areas’ for residents after unlawfully encroaching upon public passages.

Roads and streets are occupied under the guise of security and are a constant source of nuisance and discomfort for the capital’s residents.



The police, rangers, intelligence agencies and administrations of embassies, ministries, government departments and private offices have been mentioned as encroachers by the CDA in its report submitted to the court.

The details show that some 85 roads have been blocked in the G-series sectors, 81 in the F-series, 43 in the I-series sectors, and seven in Blue Area.

There are 34 major, link or services roads which are blocked, besides 158 streets, in total.

Constitution Avenue seems the worst affected, as it is blocked at five different locations — near Kohsar Complex, Secretariat Chowk, Cabinet Gate, D-Chowk and Radio Pakistan Chowk.

Diplomatic Enclave in Sector G-5, according to the report, houses 43 embassies and high commissions, and is totally closed for the general public.

Similarly, Attaturk Avenue, Margalla Road, 3rd and 4th Avenues, and School Road have also been blocked at different points.

Interestingly, the CDA in 2014 re-aligned the route of the Kashmir Highway expansion project near Golra Mor, as an army depot is located there on encroached land.

Part one of a two-part exclusive report on encroachments and illegal settlements in the city

Published in The Express Tribune, August 3^rd, 2015.