KARACHI, July 13: The city government continued its operation to remove encroachments from along the Lyari riverbed on Saturday and demolished illegal structures to pave the way for construction of the Lyari Expressway.

A spokesman for the city government, in a statement, said the land revenue department of the city government bulldozed more than 20 residential units on Thursday and 30 on Friday in Pak Colony. He said the operation to remove encroachments from both sides of the Lyari river had been continuing for the past one week.

He said encroachments had been removed from a 6-km-long stretch from Mauripur Road up to Lovelane Bridge in Pak Colony, and from a 3-km-long stretch in Shershah during the past one week. During the operation, 117 residential, 64 commercial and 57 industrial units besides cattle-pens, huts and hovels were removed.

He claimed that the anti-encroachment operation was in progress with the help of people. He claimed that people voluntarily participated in the operation and they themselves demolished their residential and commercial units.

Referring to an incident on Thursday in which a boy was killed, the spokesman said: “No untoward incident took place during the anti-encroachment operation.

A couple of days ago, a boy died when a wall collapsed, but it did not happen during the operation. This incident took place about 9pm and at that time people were collecting their belongings from the rubble and demolishing their houses voluntarily. The houseowner was demolishing his own house voluntarily when a wall collapsed and the boy died under the weight of the wall. The operation was suspended in the evening.”

He said a difficult phase of removal of encroachments from Mauripur Road up to Dhobi Ghat, Garden and Lovelane bridge had been completed after which construction work on Lyari Expressway had begun on these parts.