Islamabad: Asadullah, 22, a resident of I-11 slum who used to work in the fruit and vegetable market, on Saturday loaded some steel sheets, cotton mattresses, polythene, wood and a few pieces of crockery on a horse cart.
He was headed to Tarnol.
“My house has been demolished by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) so my family has decided to go to Tarnol, where my uncle lives. We are four brothers and two sisters. We will try and make a home there now,” he said.
Looking at the debris of his home, he said: “I was born in the I-11 katchi basti and played in the streets of this slum. As a child I sold sherbat to passengers who used to come here from other cities. Then I started working as a labour in the fruit and vegetable market,” he said.
“It will be difficult to leave this place. Not only am I familiar with every nook and cranny but I know the traders and transporters here who dealt with my father and then me.”
The CDA’s operation against katchi abadis increases sense of victimisation among working-class Pashtuns
Asadullah’s father moved here from Mohmand Agency almost three decades back.
Asad is not the only person with a story of memories of a home lost and destroyed. Nearly every inhabitant of I-11 has a similar story to tell.
Kamal Khan, 17, said that he used to sell melons in the fruit and vegetable market. He is now planning to shift to 1-12.
“We (family) will shift again [from 1-12] if the CDA extends its operation but we cannot afford to leave the area because we work in the fruit and vegetable market,” he said.
Although Capital Development Authority (CDA) has managed to demolish most of the Afghan Basti in I-11 without much hindrance, the operation has earned it significant flak.
For instance, the chairman National Assembly Standing Committee Law, Justice and Human Rights Chaudhry Mahmood Bashir Virk asked where CDA was when the encroachment began.
“Departments and officers who were responsible for stopping the encroachments should be taken to task,” he said, adding that the authority should act when the first structure is being built and not when people have built houses and lives at a location.
But more serious still is the alacrity with which the CDA acted against poor and powerless people.
How the court got involved
Two years ago, a slum dweller, Amin Khan, filed a petition in Islamabad High Court (IHC) that in 2000 and then in 2013 his application for a computerized national identity card (CNIC) was rejected because he was not a resident of Islamabad.
Surprised to hear that an unregistered citizen was living in Islamabad, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui demanded that CDA provide him details on how many other people lived in the capital without residential proof. He then ordered them removed.
As a result, the CDA informed the court that they had earmarked 42 katchi abadis for demolition across the city and announced that the operation will start soon.
Fearing the court, the authority has cleared the land but without bothering to explain or care where the displaced residents will go.
If this is only the beginning…
The president of Awami Workers Party (Punjab) Asim Sajjad Akhtar told Dawn that the party estimates that around 100,000 persons living in the katchi abadis in Islamabad.
“In I-11 there were over 15,000 persons. Those who have shifted have gone to some shops of the Fruit and Vegetable Market as a majority of them work in the market. Some have moved to the houses of their relatives in Fauji Colony Rawalpindi,” he said.
CDA on the other hand claims that 7,995 people lived in the I-11 katchi abadi.
While replying to a question, Mr Akhtar said that over 90 per cent of the residents of the katchi abadi were born in Islamabad and did not want to or were not equipped to relocate to the Federally Administered Tribal Area, where their forefathers may have come from.
“They will stay in the Islamabad. If forced, they will move beyond the jurisdiction of CDA i.e. Tarnol, Bhara Kahu or Rawalpindi,” he said adding that the majority of those displaced could not afford to buy land and would continue to live in shanty towns.
His views are echoed by the residents.
A resident of I-11 Katchibasti, Mufti Abdullah, said that the majority of people are Pashtun but they would not move to Fata or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“We have been trying to get a stay order to save other slums but even if we don’t get the stay order we will live in different parts of the federal capital or Rawalpindi,” he said.
“Over the years as many as eight slums (in sector F and G series) were legalized. Political personalities also played a role in getting these abadis legalised. When J Salik became federal minister during the prime ministership of Benazir Bhutto, he helped legalize the slum of sector G-8,” explained a CDA official.
“In the 90s, an attempt was made to shift residents of slums. This is why the Model Urban Shelter Project was started in Alipur Farash where plots were allotted to those who lived in katchi abadis but the majority of them sold their plots,” the official said.
The ethnic angle at play
Zamin Khan, a resident of the demolished katchi abadi argued that the operation was held because there was no one to hear their voices.
“There are illegal colonies in Bhara Kahu and Tarnol but no one touches them,” he said.
A senior official of CDA, requesting to not be identified, said that the recent demolition will add to the ethnic tension in the federal capital.
“Punjabi, Kashmiri or Christian communities have been offered alternate plots or their katchi abadis have been legalized. But the Pashtun slum was forcibly removed with bulldozers.”
He pointed out that Christians occupied land in sectors F and G and their slums were legalized.
“Punjabis, Kashmiris and Christians got alternate plots in Alipur Farash although they also encroached on the land. Just a few years back, people (mostly Christian) who encroached on land near Rawal Dam were shifted to sector H-9,” he said.
“However, such treatment has never been meted out to Pashtuns. In 2014, they were removed from H-10. while this is not the first time an operation has been carried out in I-11.,” he said.
He explained that international opinion stops the state from carrying out any operation against the Christians while regional politics with India is one reason, the Kashmiris are treated with kid gloves and Punjabis get preferential treatment because they belong to this area,” he said.
Offer housing instead of using force
A town planner of CDA requesting anonymity said that slums were increasing because the CDA had failed in its prime responsibility of providing affordable housing.
“Currently even residential sectors being established tend to cater to the elite such as Park Enclave and sectors C-16 and C-17. Where can the poor and middle class live but in slums?”
Conceding that the CDA could not provide plots to the thousands of katchi abadi residents he argued that “CDA should start offering apartments to them. They need not be free – perhaps the price can reflect the cost of construction and payment can be received in installments.”
“During Pervez Musharraf’s tenure affordable housing was announced and apartments were constructed in Sector G-7. Those apartments are being sold for Rs 8 million. CDA should make smaller apartments spread over 300 square feet instead of 1000 square feet,” he said.
“Apartments should be offered to every slum resident, regardless of when they came to the city. Those who will be able to afford them will buy one and the others will move out of the city. In addition, this policy will end this debate or demand that residents of slum should get free plots, which is impossible to meet” he said.
