Karachi: The issue of squatters on land needed for new projects

[LahoreEstate]

A view of the railway track near the Gilani Railway Station in Karachi's Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town. — File Photo

KARACHI: As the government plans to embark on more mega projects for the city’s development, it is unclear how the authorities will deal with the various encroachments that have sprung up over the years across the city, particularly those on land required for these projects.

One such encroachment thrives adjacent to the railway track close to the Gilani railway station in Gulshan-i-Iqbal.

This settlement comprises about 200 huts, each housing two or three families with every family consisting of five to six members.

‘We have been living here for at least 40 years now...I was born here,’ says Babu Shiva, the head of the settlers’ community.

Shiva’s claim is rejected by area residents and shopkeepers, who say: ‘These settlements are not that old’.

‘These settlements sprang up after 1999, when this railway track became non-functional,’ says Azhar Baig, the nazim of Union Council 6, Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town.

Shiva and the other settlers acknowledge that the land they have occupied is Pakistan Railways’. However, they argue: ‘Where can we go? We have no money, no property...our homes have been razed several times by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation as well as by the railway authorities, but we rebuild them...we have nowhere else to go.’

The deputy director for property and land, Pakistan Railways, Rasheed Imtiaz Siddiqui, insists that ‘it is important to keep removing illegal settlements and not to encourage such settlers’.

‘These people are living on land that does not belong to them, and yet they want to be compensated when they finally leave the area,’ says Mr Siddiqui.

Shiva and a woman settler, Waali, on the other hand, recount how their ‘homes have been repeatedly razed and every time some sort of compensation was promised by the authorities to help relocate us...but none of those promises has been kept.’

Another woman settler says: ‘I have three young grandchildren, the oldest one is not even five…what is his fault?’

Abdul Majeed, a railway gateman working in the area and sympathetic to the settlers, nods to this.

Majeed has been working in the area for the past 20 years. The settler community members, including Babu Shiva, address him as Mamoon (maternal uncle).’ Life is not easy for these people...every time their homes are dismantled, they have to begin anew,’ says Majeed.

However, the nazim of UC-6 is notably sceptical. ‘This is not so clear and simple...I have reports that some railway employees operating on the site extort money from these squatters ... otherwise it would not be that easy for these people to stay on,’ says Azhar Baig.

Mr Siddiqui, clearly upset with the insinuation, says: ‘I’m aware of no such activity. You must appreciate how difficult it is to determine if something like this is going on at a lower level.’

Nevertheless, he says: ‘This illegal settlement will be dismantled as the land is required for a mega project, the revival of the Karachi Circular Railway, that will cost about 12.4 billion dollars.’ And ‘despite the illegality of these shanties, we will be resettling some 7,000 families under this project on about 300 acres,’ says Mr Siddiqui.

But as officials criticise the squatters for ‘also being a nuisance for the neighbourhood,’ a humane handling of these families is very important. A clinical, detached dismantling of a settlement such as this one is probably not the best solution to the problem. And how these people will eventually be dealt with remains to be seen.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn...ects-hs-09