Anti-encroachment Senior Director Bashir Siddiqui has said that clearing the Gujjar Nullah storm water drain was a gift from the Supreme Court (SC) for Karachi and Pakistan, while evicted residents around the nullah have claimed great suffering due to demolitions needed to achieve the ‘gift’.
Speaking to Meher Bokhari during her live show, Siddiqui said that Karachi had drowned last year and inhabitants around the nullah were worst affected by floods. He said that nullah residents used to throw garbage in the stormwater channel, which would now be cleaned to restore Karachi’s beauty.
Siddiqui furthered that the evicted residents would be compensated as per a government order, which stated that if 30 percent of a resident’s house was demolished, then the resident would be given Rs15,000 per month for two years to be used towards rent. He added that the SC had also ordered that the victims would receive a plot of land within two years.
Residents who lived along the Gujjar Nullah, meanwhile, had less optimistic tales to share. A resident lamented that they were promised cheques of Rs90,000 in exchange for their troubles but despite being eligible for the cheques they were not given any. She claimed that out of 100 households affected, only around five percent were given the cheques promised. She further alleged that households that weren’t even a part of the original demolitions were being destroyed.
Several reported indiscriminate demolitions, without regard for physical wellbeing of the inhabitants. A woman told Bokhari that a woman’s leg was badly injured during a demolition, while another said she was asleep with her children and her husband was not at home, when they were forced out of the house right before it was razed to the ground.
A rather irate resident said that it was futile of the SC to promise rehabilitation without ensuring it was realized before their houses were ruined. He said the chief justice gave blanket orders for demolitions without empathy for the impoverished. The resident also took the media to task and told Bokhari that media had never paid heed to their plight until now.
Siddiqui, however, maintained that 750 cheques were prepared and ready for collection, in addition to the 3,400 already disbursed. He said residents were told through their registered phone numbers to pick up their cheques from the katchi abadi office.
The Sindh government had launched the anti-encroachment drive in September 2020 to fix the city’s flailing drainage system by clearing illegal settlements around the storm water drains of Gujjar Nullah and Orangi Nullah.
In July, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement and called on the government to stop the mass evictions that were carried out without due regard for the inhabitants. According to the statement, close to 96,000 residents across 12,000 homes would be impacted negatively by the demolitions in both nullahs combined.
