KARACHI: Speakers at a seminar on Saturday urged the provincial government to provide legal protection to the local population in the city’s coastal belt by accepting that they had the first right to own the land inhibited by them for centuries.

The seminar, organised by the Sindh United Lawyers Forum of the Sindh United Party, also adopted a resolution demanding that the provincial government issue residential allotment Form-2 and Form-7 to all local residents of Deh Allah Banu, Deh Mendiari and Deh Chhatara in district Keamari by accepting that they have the ‘first right’ to own the land.

Prominent among speakers are former Karachi administrator Faheem Zaman, senior journalist Mazhar Abbas, rights activist Anees Haroon, Dr Jabar Khattak, Karachi Bar Association’s Amir Nawaz Waraich, SUP Central President Syed Zain Shah and PML-N leader Faheem Zia.

The speakers rejected the provincial government’s plan to give 6,000 acres to the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) for a housing scheme in the Hawkesbay area and demanded withdrawal of the decision.

The speakers also urged the provincial government to immediately provide basic civic facilities and necessities of life to the people living in different villages along the city’s coastal belt.

They said that it was the fundamental and constitutional right of the local population of the coastal belt to have proper road infrastructure, electricity, gas and potable water.

SUP chief Zain Shah said that the affected people of different villages along the coastal belt had complained to the party that they were being evicted by the provincial government from their native land where they had been living for centuries.

He said that the affected people had been living in the villages along coastal belt before 1947 when the country came into existence.

He recalled that the residents of several goths (villages) had been issued land documents during the regime of Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo in 1987, but the people living along the coastline were not being given ownership of their land.

He warned that the party would launch a public struggle if the provincial government evicted the local people from their land.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2024