KARACHI: Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh on Monday accused the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of delaying the resettlement of the people left homeless after demolition of their houses in an ongoing anti-encroachment drive.

Questioning the overall exercise being carried out by the provincial administration, he claimed that despite timely availability of funds by Islamabad, the Sindh government had not chalked out any plan for the rehabilitation of the displaced families yet.

He also demanded details of the funds being spent by the PPP government, saying it was mutually agreed between the federal and provincial governments that anti-encroachment operation and resettlement of the affected persons would be carried out simultaneously.

However, he saw political agenda behind the PPP government inaction, which had delayed the resettlement process.

‘Islamabad has issued funds, but PPP govt not chalking out any plan’

“The federal government has already provided Rs35 billion of its share funds,” said the opposition leader while talking to reporters after meeting the deputy commissioner of district central along with members of Zakia Bibi’s family.

Zakia Bibi, whose touching video about her home’s wrong demolition at Gujjar Nullah and her husband Shahid suffering cardiac arrest during the demolition that went viral on social media, suffered a heart attack that proved fatal on Friday.

Mr Sheikh along with his fellow colleagues met the family of Zakia Bibi, assured them his support and took them to the DC where they discussed possibilities of their immediate resettlement.

“I found the deputy commissioner [central district] a reasonable officer. He has assured his best possible support to resolve this issue,” he said. “But where is the system? Where is the Sindh government? I doubt that it’s not the administrative hurdles, but in fact a political agenda which is delaying the resettlement of the affected families.

The Supreme Court and the federal government had never asked to make people homeless. Their resettlement was conditioned with any operation, but here we have nothing for these families.”

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf legislators and members of other opposition parties would take up the issue in the ongoing Sindh Assembly session. They would not allow the PPP government to “play politics on the lives of people”, he added. He also asked the Karachi administrator to prove his impartiality and play his role for the early resettlement of the affected families.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2021