ISLAMABAD: Residents of various katchi abadis of Islamabad on Monday held a protest outside the National Press Club against their evictions from katchi abadis by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration.

The latest spate of demolitions and dispossessions has come at an unprecedented pace with devastating consequences for informal settlements in the capital. Just in the last few months, significant portions of seven settlements have been demolished, including: E-11 katchi abadi, a portion of village Chauntra near the Naval Headquarter, village Bheka Syedan in F-11, Pind Sangrial near Shah Allah Ditta, a katchi abadi near NUST, portion of village Tahlian Malpur, Jabba Taili near Zia Masjid and Dhok Khokhran near 26 number chungi.

Four of these instances of demolitions were to create space for roads even though plenty of undeveloped land was available in the vicinity of these abadis or plans could have been changed to save these settlements if the state was to rightly prioritize the right to shelter as enshrined in the constitution.

Earlier, addressing a press conference, Katchi Abadi Alliance chairperson Dr Aasim Sajjad said that summary evictions have no place in civilised society and working class residents of the federal capital are regularly subject to demolitions of their homes and livelihoods in the name of clearing ‘encroachments’.

“However, rich and powerful land grabbers, including state functionaries, operate with complete impunity, while a katchi abadi resident even has to make under-the-table payments to CDA, Iesco and other government department functionaries for perfectly legitimate matters like installation of electricity and gas meters,” he said.

Iqbal Jahan, general secretary Awami Workers Party Rawalpindi- Islamabad, said that ‘development’ cannot be a pretext for the demolition of working people’s homes and that the Katchi Abadi Alliance was willing to work with the CDA to find workable solutions but will resist if summary evictions continued to be the authorities’ preferred method.

Residents of France Colony, 66 Quarters G-7/2, Rimsha Colony H-9, Muslim Colony I-10 and a number of other katchi abadis also spoke on the occasion and shared various hardships that they confront on a regular basis, especially in the summer months when they are forced to live in squalor without electricity.

Ayesha Shahid of the Katchi Abadi Alliance said that there must be a shift in the long-term planning paradigm of the CDA so that working class residents are guaranteed affordable housing, particularly given the huge in-migration that is exacerbating the low-income housing shortage.

She emphasized that the city needed to allocate land for non-market housing to create a stock of perpetually affordable housing for low-income settlements in all zones of the ICT.

Bakhshal Thalho, general secretary Awami Workers Party, said that it was essential that the settlements coming in the way of ‘development’ projects were accepted as an integral stakeholder in the planning and design process of these development projects and projects were co-planned with affectees to appropriately accommodate their right to shelter in the city.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2023