LAHORE: Residents of Bengali Building near Jain Mandir on Saturday blocked road to protest the use of force allegedly by official to get vacated the premises “within two hours” to make way for the Orange Line Metro Train Project.

Since the residents were already complaining about receiving less financial compensation than what was promised to them by the Punjab government, they asked the officials to first compensate them for the remaining 27 rooms (of the total 127) they had been occupying in the building.

The situation turned violent after the officials, along with heavy machinery, allegedly tried to use force to vacate the building and start its demolition.

The protesting residents, chanting slogans against the government for denying them compensation amounts, blocked the nearby road by burning tyres.

“The officials incited the labourers working there to pelt us with stones, but we kept quiet, recalling the hardships our parents faced while migrating to Pakistan,” Rehmat Ali, a resident said. He also accused the officials of threatening the building residents with dire consequences if it was not vacated within two hours.

Officials deny allegation

A Lahore Development Authority (LDA) official, who was supervising the demolition work in Jain Mandir area, rejected the residents’ stance.

“For the last two months, they (residents) are being requested again and again to vacate the rooms. But they insisted they would obey the government’s order only after getting compensation amounts. So after a survey of the area the 100 families found eligible for the compensation were paid Rs1 million each,” he said.

He said the demand of the remaining 27 families was again considered by the relevant quarters and these people might also be awarded compensation in the days to come.

“During the property survey, the officials entered the names of family heads only. So now they (the officials) are counting even more than one families as one unit without considering the number of the rooms occupied, despite the CM’s announcement of Rs1 million for each family (per room),” Rehmat explained.

Some others have started packing up amid tears. “We all are related and this (Bengali) building was the first abode our forefathers got after they migrated to Pakistan from India in 1947. Many a time we requested our parents to leave this area and find some other place to live in. But every time they refused saying they cannot leave it since they loved it a lot,” a tense Rehmat said.

He criticised the way the government got the land for the train project.

“Is this project more important than those who preferred Pakistan to India in 1947.” He lamented that the officials’ only concern was to get possession of the land and they were least bothered about the compensation.

He said shifting from the building to some other place would separate families living together for more than half a century.

“We once again request the government to please first pay us fully so as to enable us to get some alternate space to live in,” Rehmat said.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2016