HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Hyderabad Division President Ajiz Dhamra has said that the party is actively pursuing the issue of shop owners’ dispossession from police properties under a Supreme Court order.
He held out the assurance that his party would leave no stone unturned in helping the tenants, who would be affected in this regard.
Speaking at a news conference along with other party leaders, including Umair Chandio, Asad Abro, Zahid Bhurgri and Fayyaz Shah, at the local press club on Saturday, he said that police property and tenants issue involved 15 districts of Sindh province where these premises were sealed under judicial orders.
He said in the Friday’s hearing at Federal Constitution Court (FCC), the bench allowed shop owners to prepare their inventories.
Dhamra says party will see if FCC judgement provides room for ruling party’s official intervention; hints at possibility of providing legal cover to deal if matter is settled amicably
He said that he has not received Friday’s written order of FCC bench but learnt that the bench had asked Sindh police to deal with the matter with tenants at their own level. “If this understanding of the order is correct then Sindh government will be fully involved in the matter to settle it amicably and protect the interests of tenants,” Mr Dhamra said.
In that case, he said, PPP government would try its best to give it legal cover so that no one was affected.
He said that a recent FCC bench judgement had ruled that SC had overstepped its authority while dealing with Nasla Tower, Karachi, issue in 2019. He wondered that when FCC had ruled that SC overstepped authority then whether any action would follow against those who illegally built or demolished the high-rise. He said he would respectfully ask that any decision would be taken about the judge whose orders led to its demolition.
Previously, he said, SC had also ruled after 44 years that murder trial of former premier Z.A. Bhutto was unfair and lacked due process. He said PPP had then asked what would happen to those who had been part of this judicial wrong that was corrected after 44 years.
He said that PPP would not leave police properties’ tenants, including residents, in the lurch. He said that the matter was being heard in FCC bench in a review application of tenants, and said that if, God forbids, it was rejected then action would have to be taken against those responsible for the construction of commercial plazas over the land given to police for welfare-oriented purposes.
Without naming the MQM-Pakistan, Mr Dhamra said that a political party was politicising the police-tenants issue. He said he would advise the party to pick some other subjects for anti-PPP politics because he understood that “many learn the art of politics by indulging in anti-PPP tirades”.
He said that PPP didn’t go to the traders’ protest camp, but that party took it as an opportunity to enter into politics on this issue.
He also pointed out that PPP would be holding a rally in Hyderabad on Sunday as part of its Sindh-wide protest against Indus Water Treaty’s unilateral suspension by India. He said the rally would be led by PPP Sindh President Nisar Khuhro.
The police authorities started a major operation by sealing about 117 shops built on police properties in Hyderabad on July 7.
The action triggered protest by affected tenants who took to the street and raised slogans against the police.
Scuffles had also occurred between the two sides after the district police estate officer, Salahuddin Ayubi, along with a contingent of personnel, had started sealing the shops.
Owners of the shops somehow got the information and gathered outside their shops, located quite adjacent to the City police station. They also staged a sit-in outside the City police station.
The protesting shop owners claimed that there was no issue of their shops, but the matter was unnecessarily dragged into litigation. They raised slogans against the police.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) lawmakers, including Syed Wasim Hussain and Rashid Khan arrived to advocate shop owners’ case.
Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) District Emir Hafiz Tahir Majeed had also joined in the protest.
The aggrieved shop owners set up a camp in the Chotki Ghitti area where business community leaders and political parties’ representatives came to express solidarity with the affected traders.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2026