KARACHI, March 21: Criticizing the demolition of houses in Jumma Goth, Lyari, North Karachi, Liaquatabad and Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Sunni Tehrik chief Abbas Qadri has stated that the demolition drive speaks of government’s prejudice towards poor people.
Talking to a delegation of the affected people, he said that if it was necessary to bulldoze someone’s house, the government should give adequate compensation to the affected people.
Abbas Qadri said even settlements, which were set up some 40 years back, were razed without given any advance notice.
He said it amounts to disturb peace in the city, and appealed to the President and the Prime Minister to come to take notice of the bulldozing of settlements, and ensure payment of compensation to people.
Mumtaz: Sindh National Front Chairman Mumtaz Ali Bhutto has deplored that professional land grabbers had occupied hundreds of thousands of acres of land over the past six years, but instead of taking action against them, the government was demolishing Sindhis’ villages in Karachi, adds PPI.
Talking to various delegations of the affected villages at his residence, Mumtaz Bhutto termed the demolition of villages ‘a conspiracy’ aimed at getting the lands vacated through such brutal actions for settling illegal immigrants coming via Khokhrapar-Munabao route.
“The anti-Sindh forces, in connivance with the federal government have planned to turn the sons of the soil into a minority by bringing in the illegal immigrants,” he added.
The SNF leader argued that if these villages were razed on the grounds that the dwellers did not have the lease documents, why hundreds of katchi abadis set up illegally in Karachi had not been razed and, instead, were being regularized.
He recalled that the present government, about 18 months back, had published a list of ‘official waderas’ occupying 45,000 acres of forest land. However, he pointed out, no action had been taken against them till date.
JI: The Jamaat-i-Islami Sindh Amir, Dr Mumtaz Memon, on Tuesday asked the city government to deal with the issue of slum areas and goths with a human face, adds PPI.
He said that cruel and tyrannical decisions of razing villages and slums showed an anti-people mentality.
He asked why the city government had turned a blind eye to encroachment on roads and footpaths. He said that parks and playgrounds were also being encroached upon and ‘sector offices’ were constructed illegally on them, but the CDGK was not ready to remove them.
He said that the MMA and the JI would raise the issue within and outside the parliament. He asked the government to refrain from uprooting old localities. He said a protest demo would be staged in front of the Press Club on Friday against the demolition.
