SWAT: Several families of Madyan area have challenged demolition of their houses by the administration under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa River Protection Act, 2014 in Peshawar High Court’s Mingora Bench, requesting it to declare the law unconstitutional and against fundamental rights of citizens.

A joint petition was filed by Mohammad Jamal and seven other inhabitants of Jugar Galai, Hospital Colony and requested the court that the respondents including provincial government and district administration should be directed to compensate them for their losses and also pay damages to them.

The petition is filed through a former additional district and sessions judge, Advocate Muambar Khan, against the provincial government through the chief secretary, secretary law and parliamentary affairs and the district administration of Swat.

The petitioner stated that KP River Protection Act, 2014 was repugnant to and in derogation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution in terms of Article 8 and as such was of no legal effect.

Lawyer terms Act against fundamental rights of citizens

They said that they were permanent residents of Jugar Galai, Hospital Colony, Madyan and had legally purchased the land and constructed houses thereon.

The petitioners said that all of them had legal documents of their lands as per the revenue record but despite that their houses were demolished. They said that they were rendered homeless. They added that they suffered serious financial problems as they were forced to live in dingy rented houses.

They claimed that they were not only rendered homeless but their houses were demolished incurring them heavy financial losses.

Advocate Muambar Khan said that the administration and relevant authorities under the cover of the Act violated the Constitution.

“The Act states that even lawful owner of the land located near the river cannot make any construction within 200 feet of the riverbank. It also asks the lawful owners to provide approved plan or design from the building control regulatory if they want to carry out any construction within 1,500 metres distance from the river,” he told Dawn.

He said that he was in favour of the river protection and all the efforts to promote ecology and betterment of environment but the government must pay compensation to the lawful owners of the land so that they could purchase land in other areas for their houses.

CONTROL: The army handed over the administrative control of Swat to the civil government three years after restoring peace and government’s writ in the valley.

The administrative control was handed over on October 22, 2018 in a ceremony to Chief Minister Mahmood Khan by Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Nazir Ahmed Butt. The entire process took a decade after army eliminated extremists from the valley and restored writ of government.

Militancy in Swat started when Mullah Fazlullah and his associates launched FM radio after they returned from Afghanistan in 2005. However, when the situation got worsened, army entered the valley and started operations against the militants in 2007. Army conducted “Operation Rah-i-Rast” and “Operation Rah-i-Haq” against the militants in Swat.

According to official figures, 2,385 civilians and innocent people were martyred and 3,694 were injured during the insurgency in Swat. During this time, 123 policemen were also martyred. About 8,288 houses were damaged in the district.

According to ISPR, about 408 officers and soldiers of army were martyred during the Swat operation while 1,334 were injured. As many as 1,641 terrorists were also killed and 377 were injured in the operations.

According to the data obtained from Khpal Kaur Foundation, more than 5,000 orphans applied for admission to the orphanage after 2007 in Swat.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2021