KARACHI: A large number of residents, backed by an alliance of different civil society organisations, set up a camp on the city’s outskirts in district Malir to resist a move by authorities to “forcibly occupy their 100 acres of irrigated land in the name of the Education City project”.

They fear that fruit orchards on the subject land having over 5,000 trees and various crops would be destroyed.

A video shared on social media showed that a local district official was asking the residents to vacate their lands, but the owners/residents put up resistance, and one of them was seen hitting his head with hands in frustration and anger. In the background, heavy machinery could be seen. An old frail woman also approached the official, who was said to be a member of the same community. In the meantime, a uniformed policeman was seen, ostensibly fearing law and order situation, whispering something in the ears of the official.

Hafeez Baloch, an office-bearer of the Sindh Indigenous Rights Alliance (SIRA), an organisation of several civil society groups, told Dawn that on Friday an assistant commissioner accompanied with the anti-encroachment police came and asked Akram Jokhio, the owner of 100 acres of land where fruits and crops existed, to vacate the place.

He said the officials had no order from any authority/institution about the lands. He said the Malir administration officials asked Mr Jokhio to vacate the land within three days; otherwise they would demolish everything on it on Monday (today).

He said Jokhio’s great grandfather had acquired this land in British-era while his grandfather got the lease in 1964. He had all such official documents/leases besides he had been paying regular land taxes, he added.

The activist recalled that in 1988 the government had planned to establish an ‘Education City’ on 9,000 acres of land in the area. Later, it allotted land to different health and educational institutes. However, two of such institutions had been cultivating crops instead of building a hospital or school/college, he said.

Mr Baloch alleged that a close aide to former president Asif Ali Zardari was planning to set up his institute on the land owned by Mr Jokhio.

He said thousands of acres of lands had already been taken over by Bahria Town Karachi and DHA City and the current project of Education City was another move to displace local population and destroy their crops and orchards.

He said that members of civil society would gather in the area on Monday (today) and make a human chain against the government move to get control of the land.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2023