HYDERABAD: Bishop Kaleem Jan of the Hyderabad Diocese on Monday led a protest demonstration by his community members to condemn, what he described as, forced eviction of Mission Compound, located in Sukkur.

Speaking at a press conference later at the club, Bishop Jan said that Mission Compound was a Christian colony being eyed by the ‘builder mafia’ which was bent upon evicting its residents by hook or by crook.

He appealed to the federal and provincial governments to provide security to the affected families by deploying the Rangers at the colony, alleging that the local police were patronising the builders.

The bishop said that there were 10-15 houses within the Mission Compound located on Mission Road in Sukkur. “The Lahore Diocese Trust Association owns this pre-partition property spread over around 6,000 square yards. I am an attorney and custodian of this compound,” Bishop Jan said, and warned that residents of the compound, who were tenants, could not be evicted as the matter was pending a decision before the Sukkur district and sessions court. He accused a family member of the former (late) bishop of Hyderabad diocese of supporting the builders in their illegal act of getting the colony vacated to facilitate construction of a plaza within the compound.

“Policemen including [those in] plainclothes wearing masks entered the compound late on Saturday night while its residents were celebrating New Year’s Eve. The police beat up and harassed women and children and asked them to vacate the compound within the next 24 hours,” he claimed.

Published in Dawn January 3rd, 2017