Capital authorities accused of attacking working class and ignoring powerful real estate interests
ISLAMABAD:
Representatives of scores of katchi abadis, street vendors and other working class organizations from across the federal capital recently held a press conference at the National Press Club to demand an end to the wave of evictions launched by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in recent weeks and appeal to the higher courts to uphold their constitutional right to housing and livelihood.
Addressing the press, leaders of the Awami Workers Party, All Pakistan Katchi Abadi Alliance and Anjuman Rehribaan appealed to the Supreme Court and the newly created Federal Constitutional Court to uphold the stay order issued by the Supreme Court in 2015 in response to a constitutional petition filed by the AWP establishing a moratorium on summary evictions.
AWP leader Alia Amirali said the CDA and ICT have recently intensified so-called ‘anti-encroachment operations’ against a number of working class households as well as street vendors, informal hoteliers and others, while granting free license to big real estate tycoons and big businessmen to build illegal housing projects and shopping plazas.
He said this blatant class warfare goes against all legal mandates and original planning principles of the CDA ordinance, and that the Master Plan has become a complete farce. He noted that an officer was brought in from Lahore to head the CDA’s law enforcement division and its eviction drive against the poor, in total contravention of all rules.
Leaders of Katchi Abadi, Patras Joseph, Mir Azam, Muhammad Riaz, Rukhsana Qazi, Amanat Mashih, Ahmed Guddu and many others from sectors I-10, I-9, Barim Imam Muslim Colony, Saidpur Village, H9, Alipur Farash, France Colony, 100 Quarters F6, G-8 Miskeen Musharraf Colony, G7 Colony Allama Iqbal and the H11 Muzaffar colony. He said that it is the workers living in katchi abadis who have built, sustained, fed and cleansed Islamabad since its inception and have the right to the city enshrined in the constitution.
They noted that the AWP filed a petition before the SC in July 2015 when the CDA and then the PML-N demolished a settlement of over 20,000 Pashtun workers on I-11 and the Supreme Court not only considered this petition but issued a stay order against any further summary eviction.
They said the court had ordered the CDA and the federal government to show that it had a viable plan to address the housing demands of the low-income segments of the urban population, but in the intervening decade Islamabad and other big cities in the country have increasingly become hostages to real estate developers, speculators and land grabbers.
