AFTER several weeks of back and forth, for many residents of Islamabad it appears that the worst is about to happen. Last week, a high-level meeting was held by the Capital Development Authority and it was reportedly decided that action would finally be initiated against the city’s katchi abadis. The people living here had so far been spared the long arm of the law because police authorities and the local administration feared a strong backlash. But with the Islamabad High Court remarking on Thursday that these slums constituted the illegal occupation of land, and directing the CDA to clear them, renewed resolve seems to have been found. If the operation against the slums delivers what it promises, the government will get its land back and to the city will be restored that pristine quality which is held so dear by well-off residents. But thousands of people from the poorest sections of society will no longer have homes.

It is true that such slums, not just in Islamabad but in cities across the country, are often unauthorised and encroach illegally on government land, amenity plots, etc. Through the lens of the law, therefore, the people who live in them are in the wrong. We cannot help but wonder, though, where the burden of responsibility rests when little to no effort is evident on the part of city planners to cater to the needs of low-income groups. Such groups have large populations in urban areas, and rural-to-urban migration is a fact of life in a country where finding the means to earn a livelihood is no easy task. It would be reasonable to expect that amid all the glittering towers of steel and chrome that city managers love to boast of, some attention would be paid to low-income housing zones for those who are the invisible cogs that keep the city wheels turning. Lacking that, people construct houses on whatever land they can find. City planners always wake up when the eyesores grow big enough, and react by either clearing the land or, if it is too densely populated, regularising it. But, it would seem, even basic planning is too much for the great and the good.