SUKKUR: A large number of people staged a rally in Kandhkot on Sunday in protest against ongoing drive against encroachments purportedly on the orders of Supreme Court and said poor people were being rendered homeless on the pretext of apex court’s orders.

Senior lawyer Abdul Ghani Bijarani and other prominent citizens, who led the rally, demanded the government provide houses to the poor in compensation for the demolished ones.

They said that it was clearly mentioned in the court orders that first, shops and markets set up on public land and commercial plots would be removed and then a report would be submitted to the court before turning towards houses but ironically the very same officials of the revenue department of Kashmore who had themselves prepared peoples’ land ownership documents were now in the forefront of the drive to raze their houses.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2021