Islamabad : The two-pronged anti-encroachment operation, jointly launched by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration is the longest and the most successful one people have witnessed.
The operation, which was started from Sector D-12 to get the acquired land vacated from adverse possession to start development of sector allotted a long time ago (probably back in 1988), spread to other parts of the federal capital including the Quaid-i-Azam University lands, Malpur and Bani Gala to name a few.
Initially it was the CDA, supported by the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Administration and the Islamabad Police in these anti-encroachment operations.
However, the ICT Administration launched its own anti-encroachment operations later and their targets were the encroachments on public lands along the Grand Trunk (GT) Road in Tarnol area towards the West and Rawat area in the south of the city. The ICT Administration anti-encroachment operations also targeted the illegal brick kilns.
Encouraged by the success of these big anti-encroachment operations the CDA and the ICT Administration closed the net around the encroachment in the sectors of Islamabad. And it was good to see that these anti-encroachment operations were without discrimination, fear or favour.
Encouraged by the success of the CDA’s and ICT Administration’s the Building Control Directorate of the CDA also launched its own operations against illegal or unapproved structures in the federal capital.
In the past it was always observed that whenever the CDA tried to launch any kind of anti-encroachment operations, it was forced to abandon it mid-way because the encroachers rushed to approach the judiciary and almost always managed to get ‘stay orders’, effectively thwarting authority’s action.
And the litigation that always ensued lingered on and on, discouraging the CDA to initiate any more actions on one hand and encouraging encroachers. However, this time because of the intervention of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the lower judiciary, the ICT Administration as well as the CDA is able to carry out the anti-encroachment drive without interruptions.
The fact that the incumbent Chairman of the CDA, Amir Ali Ahmed, also is the chief commissioner of Islamabad, has also helped carry out these anti-encroachment operations effectively because the anti-encroachment teams are accompanied by the concerned assistant commissioners and in many cases the deputy commissioner of Islamabad had personally monitoring these operations.
And because of the presence of these ICT Administration officers, sufficient strength of Islamabad Police has always been present to prevent any law and order situation during these operations.
The last, somewhat successful, anti-encroachment operation was conducted by the CDA in Aabpara Market when the elected Mayor of Islamabad, Sheikh Ansar Aziz was holding the office of the Chairman of the CDA as well.
That operation was launched in night time and by morning the CDA had managed to demolish or damaging a large number of illegal encroachments/structures. However, the encroachers rallied back in morning and with the passage of time most of those demolished/damaged encroachments were restored!