The representatives of the All-Pakistan Alliance of Katchi Abadis Rawalpindi-Islamabad have strongly condemned the move by Capital Development Authority (CDA) to demolish the mud houses in slum dwellings set up in the Federal Capital.
In a press briefing here on Monday the residents of Katchi Abadi flayed the CDA demolition plan. Representatives of the Anjuman Mazarain Punjab (AMP) were also present on the occasion to support Katchi Abadi dwellers.
In recent days, the CDA has made several attempts to illegally demolish a number of squatter settlements in Rawalpindi and Islamabad and has threatened the inhabitants to vacate the authority's land.
The ICT Police baton charged unarmed women and children on May 12, which seriously injured two women when a crowd was demonstrating peacefully outside the CDA head office.
Speaking on the occasion, Alliance Divisional President, Sheikh Abdur Rahman, condemned the violent and disrespectful treatment meted out to peaceful protestors.
He said CDA's attempt to demolish homes in G-8/4 and other abadis were in fact illegal according to the 2001 National Policy on Katchi Abadis.
Alliance representative Rukhsana Qazi and Abida Bashir said that tens of millions of rupees were spent on beautifying Islamabad, planting flowers, and carpeting the roads of rich neighbourhoods, whereas homes of the working people who laboured hard every day to make this possible, were razed to the ground.
Pointing to the extreme injustice being committed, they demanded of the CDA to put an immediate halt to the evictions.
Asim Sajjad from AMP said that as long as the basic needs of the majority of the population such as shelter were not provided for, katchi abadis would continue to proliferate.
The solution to the problem lies in re-conceptualising the role of government in society and in an overhaul of dominant values so as to rid society of its current obsession with private gain and profit at the expense of all else.