Karachi:
Exactly five years have passed since a seven -story building, built on a 74 -square -foot plot in the Karachi neighborhood, Gulbahar, collapsed. As a result, 27 people, including eight women and three children, lost their lives in the unfortunate incident. An illegal construction case went to court, and the owner of the building and his four relatives were convicted of involuntary homicide, intended to be a deterrent element of illegal activity. However, after a brief pause, the forbidden activity resumed sporadically.
Liaquatabad, a neighborhood in the central district of Karachi, is home to numerous unauthorized buildings that challenge security standards. These structures, up to six floors, are based on small land plots, typically around 90 square yards.
The area is dotted with such buildings in several stages of construction, each of which includes around a dozen portions to accommodate several families. This has exerted tension in the already fragile civic infrastructure. Specific examples of such high in plots 328, 333, 372, 389 and 400 in block 10 of Liaquatabad can be found.
It is alarming that the dangerous construction can continue without control, apparently with the complicity of the Local Police and the officials of the Control Authority of the Building of Sindh, despite the resident protests and judicial orders to take energetic measures against the construction mafia.
The SBCA annual performance report by 2024, issued on January 1, 2025, reports that more than 1,500 illegal constructions were demolished or faced legal actions throughout Sindh, including the seven Karachi districts. This raises questions about whether SBCA’s staff did not notice the illegal structures in Liaquatabad, which have been under construction for six months to a year.
The acquittal of eight SBCA officials in the infamous case of collapse of the Gulbahar building may have had a worrying consequence. The lack of prosecution to prove the charges against him may have emboldened those involved in the corrupt link of constructors, officials and agents of the law.
Perhaps, the benefit of the doubt granted to eight SBCA officials in the infamous case of collapse of the Gulbahar building, since the Prosecutor’s Office did not prove charges against him. It seems that the authorities are only waiting for another tragedy similar to Gulbahar to stimulate them to action.
