KARACHI, Oct 10: An all parties conference on Gutter Baghicha on Sunday demanded that Karachi be renamed as Kolachi to restore its old glory. It also called for the safeguard of rights of natives on their ancestral land.
They criticised the policies of successive rulers for systematically demolishing the old Baloch settlements in the city by brute force. Speakers of the conference warned the rulers to mend their ways and stop demolition of old settlements in Karachi on the pretext of development.
They also urged the government to take effective measures and make necessary laws for protecting the rights of natives and shun the policy of discrimination. At the same time they expressed deep concern over the fate of the Gutter Baghicha project, saying despite the fact that President Musharraf had announced on April 28 last that a national park would be built on the site, no step had been taken for its construction yet.
They said a major part of the project, which was once a green land in the locality, had now been occupied by land mafia in collaboration with the government agencies.
The speakers said the area of the Gutter Baghicha once comprised 1,017 acres, but the open space now left was only 480 acres. They urged the Sindh and the city governments to execute the national park project as announced by the president in his April 28 speech.
They maintained that the people of these areas had always been deprived of the fruits of development and continued to suffer due to lack of modern facilities. The conference was called by the newly established NGO Baloch Rights Council, Karachi with the cooperation of the Shehri.
It was addressed by prominent Baloch intellectual and Chairman BRC Yusaf Naskand, PPP MPA Rafiq Engineer, leader Baloch National Party Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, Rauf Sasuli (JWP), Salim Saleh Buzdar (PPP-SB), Hashim Khoso (JSM), S.M Altaf (Muzdoor-Kisan) besides others.
The speakers vowed that they would continue their struggle for restoring the original status of Karachi and protect the rights of its natives. The conference adopted a number of resolutions calling for immediate execution of work on the Gutter Baghicha project and removal of all sorts of encroachments from the project site.
A resolution called for scrapping the cooperative housing scheme reserved for the officers of the defunct KMC Officers and urged the government not to launch any housing scheme on the project site.
However, the meeting suggested that surplus land at the project site should be reserved for the rehabilitation of displaced persons of the Lyari Expressway project. A resolution also condemned the ongoing gang war in Lyari area and termed it a conspiracy to pit Balochs against Balochs.