September 8, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Saani29,1423

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PESHAWAR, Sept 7: Fearing demolition of their shops by the Cantonment authorities on Monday, the shopkeepers in Cantonment area have started trimming encroachments of their structures.

The Cantonment Board has already extended the deadline set for from Aug 30 to Sept 7. Now the authorities have planned to undertake demolition drive from Monday.

The authorities have asked the shopkeepers to trim their shops and houses by four feet in order to repair the faulty drainage system and widen roads.

“We have started to cut the encroachments by four feet because we want to cooperate with the government. The anti-encroachment drive would restore the lost glory of the historical Saddar Bazaar,” said a shopkeeper who owns a jewellry shop on Saddar Road.

According to him, some of the shopkeepers were not willing to cooperate with the government and were hesitant to trim their shops by four feet but warned that they would receive more harm in case the bulldozers were run on their shops.

Shopkeepers on Saddar and Tipu Sultan Roads and in some narrow lanes have began cutting their shops in order to save their property from the total collapse.

Some of the shopkeepers argue that they have been operating with the same shops since 50 years and the proposed anti-encroachment drive would cause them material loss to the tune of millions of rupees. But the Cantonment officials say that these people had occupied the government land without permission.

These lands have to be vacated in order to widen roads and repair the drainage system. The officials say the government will lay underground wires of telephone and electricity which would benefit the people and the shopkeepers.