Karachi: ‘At least 40 police stations in city built on amenity plots’

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Shahid Husain
Police that is supposed to enforce law is fast occupying amenity plots in mega city Karachi, thereby depriving citizens of parks, clinics, hospitals and necessary open spaces. “There were two amenity plots in the Journalist Colony in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. One was meant for establishing a club while the other for a health centre. The total area of the two plots was 3,000 sq. yards. However, police blatantly occupied the plot meant for health centre and established Mobina Police Station there,” A. Majid Khan, veteran sports journalist and former president Journalist Welfare Society told The News.

“The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has established a park in the other plot although it was meant for a journalist club,” he said. “The representatives of journalist community called on at least six successive inspector general police (IGPs) to get the occupied plot vacated but failed to do so,” said Abdul Hameed Chhapra, another veteran journalist and a resident of Journalist Society in Gulshan-e-Iqbal.

“As a matter of fact out of 100 police stations operating in the city at least 40 have been built on encroached land,” he said. “No wonder police is bracketed with land mafia because instead of ensuring security to citizens it not only works hand in glove with encroachers but it itself is a big encroacher,” concurred Habib Khan Ghauri, a veteran journalist and former president of Karachi Press Club (KPC).

A resident of middle class locality of Nazimabad told The News that Shamim Shaheed police chowki and a hydrant of Karachi Water & Sewerage Board have been established in an Eidgah plot in Nazimabad No 3. He said there was a time when former President Pervez Musharraf besides top cricket and hockey players offered prayers on this plot.

A senior police official who requested anonymity confirmed that most of the police stations in Karachi have been built on encroached land. “There are 106 police stations in Karachi and most of them have been built on encroached land,” he told The News. Then there are hundreds of police posts built on pavements, he added.

According to noted architect and town planner Arif Hasan 8,000 acres of amenity plots have been occupied in metropolis Karachi between 1986-87 and 2006-07, including a large number of parks. At many places these parks have been occupied by the police. Even pavements have not been spared by the police. For instance one finds well constructed police posts on pavements in front of PECHS graveyard and at main Tariq Road.

Reportedly City Nazim Mustafa Kamal has been writing letters to Capital City Police Office (CCPO), Waseem Ahmed, Governor Sindh Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ebad, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and home department regarding collusion between police and the encroachers but to no avail.

According to newspaper reports the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) has listed 7,956 alloted/un-alloted plots (residential, amenity, commercial, industrial and flat-site) that have been encroached upon in former KDA schemes in connivance with police. “No other city has changed like Karachi,” according to Hasan.

Karachi became a high-density, multi-ethnic and multi-class city after the creation of Pakistan in 1947 when it absorbed the influx of immigrants from India and paved the way for the flowering of a nascent culture. Influx of Bangladeshi population in the city after 1971 enabled police to extort money from these poor people and one can find police mobiles collecting money from Bengalis working in garment factories at Karimabad on payday.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=180809