Members of the Palari community blocked both the sides of the Super Highway for 10 minutes on Sunday. They were protesting against the construction of the M-9 Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway as the residents and businesses along its route have been asked to vacate properties. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/ EXPRESS
Both tracks of the Karachi-Hyderabad highway were blocked for 10 minutes on Sunday by demonstrators from the Palari community who were protesting the construction of the M-9 Motorway.
In March, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had expressed his hope, during the ground-breaking ceremony of the M-9 project, that by building a state-of-the-art road network between Karachi and Lahore, people living across the country would become closer. However, the project has hit a major speed bump with the recent development.
The Palari community, according to its residents, is on the verge of eviction as the NHA is all set to kick off the construction of the M-9, which is part of the greater Karachi-Lahore Motorway.
Read: Stumbling block: Protesters to block Super Highway today
The NHA, according to Badal Palari, a senior representative of the community, has asked the residents and businesses on both sides of the highway to vacate their residential and commercial properties immediately.
One of the residents, Fayaz Palari, while speaking to The Express Tribune, said that generations of their people have grown up on the land. "Even when the main Super Highway was not constructed, our community used to live here," he said, adding that they would never allow the construction of the motorway that destroys their homes and businesses.
He said that, after the Toll Plaza, 500 metres of the Super Highway was a residential as well as commercial area and 220 feet from the right and 450 feet from the left side, from Karachi to Hyderabad, has been acquired for the project. "There are hundreds of hotels, CNG pumps and a graveyard, which have to be vacated for this project," he pointed out.
Another resident, Aziz Palari, said that he has been running his hotel for the last 50 years. "This hotel is all my family has, how can it be destroyed?" he asked, adding that the destruction of their 200-year-old civilisation must end before it begins.
Abdul Sattar Baloch, who works at a car station on the Super Highway, said that the Palari community are not the only residents of the area. "There are several communities who have been living here for centuries," he said and asked how could they be made to evict their land so suddenly.
"We have been living here for centuries. We have no water or electricity facilities and now they just want to destroy our houses to build some motorway," he lamented.
The All Pakistan Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Association, Sindh chairperson, Shabbir H Sulemanjee, who is a member of the Super Highway Stakeholders Committee, said that their next protest would be in front of the CM House and NHA office on Shahrae Faisal. He also threatened to halt the CNG supply from Karachi to Hyderabad.
"If the federal government does not pay any heed to our concerns, the [number of] protesters will be much more than they are today," he threatened, adding that they did not want to kill the project, which is of national interest, but if the federal government could acquire barren, empty land for the Hyderabad to Lahore Motorway, why could they not do the same here? "That way [the homes of] thousands of residents would be saved," he said.
Sulemanjee also demanded that a fence-free expressway be constructed from Karachi to Hyderabad and Toll Plaza be moved after Kathore. He said that Bahria Town has already obtained a stay order on the construction of this project from the Sindh High Court, as their project was also coming in the right of way of the M9 Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway Project.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2015.
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