KARACHI: Zahid Ramzan’s household, including young children, have to watch their step when climbing up or down the narrow staircase or when turning towards their lounge or kitchen because without the supporting wall there and with the rusty steel bars jutting out from that side of the house there is always the danger of their losing their balance and falling to death.

House No 649/A located on Street No 25/C next to the Manzoor Colony/Akhtar Colony nullah (storm-water drain) in Mahmoodabad No 5 1/2 is built on a 228.80-square-yard plot leased out to Mohammad Ramzan Chishti, Zahid’s father, for 99 years back in 2002.

On Aug 4, it was partially demolished on the orders of DC-East Asif Jan Siddiqui without any prior notice served to the residents. “I was at work when I received my wife’s panicky phone call at around 11.30am that day informing me that there were strange men with machines and tools outside our house telling her that it was encroaching on the nullah and must be demolished, immediately,” Zahid told Dawn while standing on the rubble of the knocked down walls and broken pillars of his home with many of their belongings and furniture piled up in a corner. “This is our home, our property. Where else do we go?” he said.

“Since my office is at a distance from my home, I called my younger brother, who was also at work then. His office is nearer to our place and he could reach there before me. There was only my wife and my sister, who was visiting from another city with her little children, at home. My own children were at school,” he said, adding that when his brother did reach their place first and tried stopping the men, he was manhandled by two SHOs there.

“By the time I reached home, the locks on the main door had been broken and there were policemen inside the house. They had no search warrant or permission to storm into our house and yet they were behaving as if carrying out a raid on terrorists. They also misbehaved with the women in the house while both my brother and myself were taken away and detained at the Baloch Colony police station for interfering with their work,” said Zahid.

Apparently, the Baloch Colony police station has no jurisdiction in Mahmoodabad No 5 ½. Still, when Zahid and his brother tried explaining with the help of area maps to the two SHOs present on the scene to supervise the demolition of their house, they refused to see reason and said that they did not understand documentation.

Meanwhile, the DC-East himself also ignored their maps as he preferred referring to Google Maps on his smartphone while giving orders. “We were detained at the Baloch Colony police station from 12.30pm to 6.05pm and released only after taking surety from our cousin that we would not interfere in the demolishing process,” said Zahid.

“But,” he said, “we have been wronged. This side of the area, which is Mahmoodabad, is not encroaching on the nullah. The nullah has been encroached on the other side, which is Manzoor Colony.”

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2016