ON the night of Oct 1, a truck came to the area from which bricks were unloaded. I thought it was for the nearby girls school as some repair work was going on there. The next morning, I was aghast to see a wall in place, separating G-6/1-3 sector from G-6/1-4 in Islamabad. The beauty of vastness has been blocked by this ghastly wall which has been built without proper foundations or any proper piece of work.

It was like popping up construction without any aesthetic sense, and extending the municipal office on public land while destroying the original blueprint. A while ago, someone in the single-storey quarters of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) had the commercial sense to build a first floor and then to rent it out to make money. The trend caught on, and CDA employees one after the other had additional structures built without bothering about whteher the foundation of those single-storey structures could carry the excess weight.

Islamabad’s openness and greenery need to be salvaged, not destroyed. The old residents of Islamabad have fond memories of G-6 sector as it is the oldest sector in the capital. It is our duty to preserve it.

We should plant trees and flowers instead of raising ugly, distasteful constructions.

Farah Gul
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2022