The destroying of nests

Published November 15, 2015
The yellow Moon Garden building with more questionable construction on the same Railways land and the Karachi Circular Railway track covered with wild plantation running past it. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star
The yellow Moon Garden building with more questionable construction on the same Railways land and the Karachi Circular Railway track covered with wild plantation running past it. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star

KARACHI: When a sparrow is building a nest outside your window or at any other undesirable place, it is best to stop it then and there and throw away the bits of dry grass or splinters it has collected to give it a message of not being welcome. But once it has built its nest, elders and wise people advise that it be left alone, because destroying it would also mean throwing out the eggs in that nest or the chicks that hatch out of those eggs. In a way you would be displacing or punishing several innocent lives for the mistake of one.

This is exactly what is going on at Moon Garden. The eight-storey residential complex is said to have been raised illegally on an encroached piece of Pakistan Railways land. There is also a railway track, although covered with wild plantation now as it has remained unused for years after the winding up of Karachi Circular Railway, running by it. During the time it was being determined that what to do about the illegal occupation and construction on the piece of land, the builders of Moon Garden carried on with their work, booked apartments, completed the building and handed over possession to unsuspecting buyers, most of whom moved into the place and have been living there for over three years now.

Still, the truth comes out sooner or later. After proving that the construction is in fact illegal and on government land, the people living in Moon Garden have been told to vacate the building, which is to to be demolished. “But it is our home, where do we go?” says Sabah, a young girl.

Basement parking that is still unusable. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star
Basement parking that is still unusable. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star

She with the other occupants of this building held a five-day sit-in outside the building. That was also where they shared their stories with the media. “Why do we have to pay for someone else’s crime? I sold my little place in F.B. Area and added to it to buy my apartment for Rs3 million only a few months ago. If I have to leave this place, I need my money back to be able to buy another place. But the builders, who sold us the apartment are nowhere to be found. Who do I turn to?” says Khalil Ahmed. “I’m no fool, before buying the apartment, I also have a search certificate showing this place as legal according to the Karachi Building Control Authority. How is it suddenly illegal, I don’t know.”

Asif Jamil, another resident, says that they have been living in Moon Garden for three years now. “We had taken an illegal connection through the hook or kunda system earlier, but now it is a legalised kunda connection as we the residents have paid for two pole-mounted transformers. We don’t have meters as yet but K-Electric does send us bills calculated on the average consumption of each flat. For cooking we have gas cylinders and for water we get tankers,” he shares.

A ‘for sale’ sign in one of the apartments. Any takers? / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star
A ‘for sale’ sign in one of the apartments. Any takers? / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star

“The building has provision for lifts but there are none as yet. I live on the seventh floor and have to climb unending flight of steps with my one-and-a-half-year-old and three-month-old sons every day. There is an underground parking, too, but the ramp to get to it is not ready so our car rots with other residents’ cars parked outside. Still I was happy as Moon Garden is my first home,” says Rabia Daniyal.

“There are four-room and two-room apartments in Moon Garden. My mother booked a two-room apartment for me in 2006 when I wasn’t even married and after getting married I moved here with my husband after getting the bathrooms and kitchen work done ourselves. We are a young couple just starting life with our small family. We had no idea that even such a big building could be illegal. But we are not squatters, we are legal owners of our little apartment. We don’t know where we’ll go if evicted from here,” the young woman cried.

“Look, this building and many like it all over Karachi are standing thanks to NOCs from organisations such as the SBCA, KBCA, cantonment boards, Federal Board of Revenue, KMC, etc. After all there must have been an architectural plan that must also have been passed before the construction. That’s the kind of understanding we have with the builders before booking and buying flats in such high-rises. It didn’t even occur to us that all this could have been done illegally,” Mohammad Javed, another resident screams out in frustration.

Panic-stricken residents of the apartment building out on the roads in search of a sympathetic ear. / Provision for lifts but no lift in the eight-storey apartment building. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star
Panic-stricken residents of the apartment building out on the roads in search of a sympathetic ear. / Provision for lifts but no lift in the eight-storey apartment building. / Photos by Fahim Siddiqi/White Star

“Even katchi abadis are legalised after a while by the government. After the completion and handing over of possession of the flats in Moon Garden, this is all water under the bridge. The government should legalise it if it was illegal as breaking it down hurts people who did nothing wrong and are victims of someone else’s treachery,” he adds.

Zafar Abbas, an elderly resident of Moon Garden, says that he booked a four-room apartment in the building for Rs1.2 million in 2002. “Then, according to the plans shown to us, this was a ground plus four-storey building. We paid the installments in three years according to the builder’s demands but the building wasn’t ready in time, and when it was, it turned out to be an eight-storey building! In between there were demand for more money and by the time we moved in here, we had paid Rs1.8 million. Having invested so much and using up all my provident fund for my apartment here, I couldn’t go back and moved in here hoping to spend the last days of my life in peace. I am a heart patient, my child. I have nowhere else to go. I only have the option of jumping off my apartment balcony now, if they come to evict us!”

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2015

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