Encroachment and Eviction]

Urban Resource Center (URC) [ENCROACHMENT AND EVICTION] NEWSCLIPPINGS JANUARY TO JUNE 2020 ENCROACHMETN & EVICTION Urban Resource Centre A-2, 2nd floor, Westland Trade Centre, Block 7&8, C-5, Shaheed-e-Millat Road, Karachi. Tel: 021-4559317, Fax: 021-4387692, Email: [email protected], Website: www.urckarachi.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/URCKHI Twitter: https://twitter.com/urc_karachi Page 1 Urban Resource Center (URC) [ENCROACHMENT AND EVICTION] '2,100 traders given alternative shops' Mayor Wasim Akhtar on Thursday said that as many as 2,100 out of total 2,600 traders affected in the anti-encroachment drive were so far given alternative shops for their businesses and the remaining would be given alternative places for business in the next two months. Addressing a ceremony held in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation‘s head office on the balloting of shops and offices to 405 affected traders of zoological garden market, he said that the municipal administration alone did all this with its resources as no one helped it in relocation of these traders. Mr Akhtar said that it was his responsibility to focus on the problems of the city‘s people. He said that the anti-encroachment operation was launched on the directive of the Supreme Court and it was aimed at restoring the original shape of the city. The mayor admitted that the municipal administration committed a mistake by allowing people to carry out commercial activities on city parks, drains and pavements. ―The situation reached to the extent that the city lost its beauty and people faced a lot of difficulties in their daily life,‖ he added. He said that it was unfortunate that the federal and provincial governments failed to secure their land and ownership of the city was never seen. ―The Sindh government ... initially made some commitments for supporting the relocation of the displaced shopkeepers, but nothing was done practically,‖ he said. ―The delay in allotment of shops is due to the fact that we want to provide permanent place for business to all affected traders,‖ he added. Metropolitan Commissioner Dr Syed Saif-ur-Rehman said that it was even more important to relocate the traders than to remove them in the anti-encroachment drive. The metropolitan commissioner expressed hope that these traders would do good business at the new place. Parliamentary leader in City Council Aslam Shah Afridi said that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan proved that it felt the pain of people. ―The mayor has given most of the affected shopkeepers their rights and the remaining would too get the alternative soon‖, he added. Chairman of Karachi Tajir Ittehad Ateeq Mir said it was a pleasure to see such events that rehabilitated people‘s livelihood. General secretary of Zoological Garden Market Association Asif Shehzad also spoke. Later the mayor along with the metropolitan commissioner and traders‘ representatives performed the balloting and announced the names of traders who got the shops and offices at the alternative place. (By Newspaper‘s Staff Reporter Dawn, 16, 10/01/2020) No ‘katcha’ houses to be demolished in winters: CM Murad Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah prohibited divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners from bulldozing katcha houses or cottages during the on-going winter season, warning them of strict action against them if they did so. In a meeting on Saturday, Shah said that the provincial cabinet had decided that no katcha houses should be flattened during the chilly winter. He mentioned that the Supreme Court had ordered the removal of encroachments along the roads, footpaths, and nullahs. ―But the district administration has started bulldozing katcha houses along the embankments of the canals, leaving the residents and their children under the open skies,‖ he stated. ―This is an inhumane act and will not be tolerated.‖ The chief minister added that he would not mind the razing of bungalows built on encroached land, but he would not tolerate the bulldozing of katcha houses or cottages. He revealed that based on his instructions, the Sindh Advocate-General had met the Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court and requested him to stop district and sessions judges from ordering the razing of katcha houses. The Karachi commissioner and deputy commissioners of the city were present during the meeting, while the commissioners and deputy commissioners of other divisions and districts of the province were present via video links. (By Our Correspondent The Express Tribune, 04, 12/01/2020) Page 2 Urban Resource Center (URC) [ENCROACHMENT AND EVICTION] Civil society distressed by anti-encroachment drives targeting the poor To show solidarity with the affectees of the anti-encroachment drives that took place in the city last year, members of civil society called a press conference to share an open letter written by them to the political parties of Sindh at the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday. Reading out the letter, Zahid Farooq of the Urban Resource Centre pointed out how the sudden removal of encroachments from the Empress Market and along the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) tracks had added to the misery of people with an increase in unemployment and poverty. ―There have been too many folks affected by the government‘s action in the first phase alone, and now the second phase promising far more devastation is hanging like a sword over these poor people‘s heads. ―While the small businesses of vendors around the Empress Market were wrapped up and their children pulled out of schools because the parents just couldn‘t afford to educate them, the KCR affectees are living in piles of rubble under the open sky. They are not just experiencing unemployment and poverty but mental torture, too. The circumstances of some [have] even pushed them to suicide,‖ he said, adding that such types of severe action only targeted the poor while illegal encroachments in the posh areas of Karachi continued. ‘The entire city is an encroachment’ Architect and town planner Arif Hasan said that the encroachments were there in the first place because of the governments‘ failure in providing the people the facilities they needed. ―That‘s how unplanned and haphazard development takes place as the city grows. There was no planning for businesses, for industry, for workers, etc. Where there was a need for warehouses they came up wherever people needed storage, where there was a need of the people to find dwelling, they built small huts and the katchi abadis came up. There were no planned bus terminals. Those too came up according to the requirements of people and thus the entire city is an encroachment,‖ he said. Writes open letter to political parties in Sindh ―But still it is a living city and the Supreme Court‘s saying to turn it into how it used to be years ago was very strange, because how can one turn back the clock? Also it is important to mention here that the informal or street economy contributed 30 to 40 per cent to the country‘s total economy. It was a big sector of our economy which we killed by turning against our small business folk. There are laws to support street economy in other countries such as India, Thailand, Iran and Egypt. We should do that here as well and register our roadside markets,‖ he said. ‘They are not terrorists or bandits’ ―Another problem here is that people don‘t have a place to live. In the rural areas they live on the floodplains and wherever they can find land. But before calling them encroachers and removing them, it is the government‘s responsibility to provide them alternative places to live. After all, they are not terrorists or bandits. They are only living in these places because the government didn‘t provide them with adequate housing,‖ he said, adding that the people living along the KCR tracks had bought the land they live on from Railways people and so they had the right to live there. Tasneem Ahmed Siddiqui of Khuda Ki Basti said that he had already created a model living area for the poor. He said that the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto‘s slogan was ‗Roti, kapra aur makaan‘. ―To an extent he did provide cheap and affordable bread to the people, but where he couldn‘t provide them housing, he regularised katchi abadis. These places came up unplanned around industry or other places of work. After Bhutto even Zia regularised katchi abadis,‖ he said, adding that many people here lived on two dollars a day and it was not possible for them to buy land for housing. ―Here the government announces housing schemes in the name of the poor but the plots remain open because they are given to those well-to-do people who don‘t need to build another house,‖ he said. ‘A violation of human rights’ Asad Butt of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that not providing jobs and a place to live was a huge violation of human rights by the government. ―But every government is looking to complete its tenure without doing anything for the people. There is a lack of political will,‖ he said. Researcher, historian and anthropologist Gul Hassan Kalmati said that all the goths, poultry farms, dairy farms are now vanishing thanks to posh residential areas such as Bahria Town, DHA City, etc. ―The Bahria Icon Tower has been built on an amenity plot but the bulldozers here come for the poor only,‖ he said. Social activist Naghma Iqtedar said that she wanted to see the Sindh government act on Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari‘s statement where he said that he held his head in shame that they had been unable to protect the poor and the helpless from the ‗heartless so-called anti-encroachment drive‘.

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