Anti-encroachment drive in Jauhar stopped after violent clash

A clash broke out between Gulistan-e-Jauhar residents and police after a team of the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) entered the neighbourhood to demolish illegal constructions and other encroachments on Tuesday.

Block 11 of Gulistan-e-Jauhar turned into a battlefield as soon as the KDA team arrived with police for an anti-encroachment operation. The residents attempted to obstruct them to save their houses, pelting the officials with stones and forcing them to stop the operation.

Both local and anti-encroachment police accompanied the KDA team. Police also fired warning shots into the air to disperse the protesters before using tear gas shells and batons. Around half a dozen protesters were also taken into custody for attacking the officials.

The residents also blocked the roads in protest, disrupting the smooth flow of traffic in the area. Police said tension was in the air as the KDA team and police reached the neighbourhood and started removing encroachments with heavy machinery.

Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO Adeel Afzal said the operation had to be stopped because of the residents’ reaction, adding that women and children were also among the protesters.

KDA officials said the operation was being conducted in the light of court orders, adding that the plots worth billions of rupees in the neighbourhood would be handed over to the original allottees. They pointed out that Pakistan President Dr Arif Alvi’s plot in Block 10 would also be reclaimed.

According to a statement issued by the KDA, a grand anti-encroachment operation was held near Munawwar Chowrangi in Block 10 of Gulistan-e-Jauhar in the light of the Supreme Court’s orders against encroachments on KDA land. Estate and Enforcement Director Shakeel Siddiqui supervised the operation.

Estate and Enforcement Additional Director Jamil Baloch told The News that the operation was supposed to take place in KDA Scheme 36 in Gulistan-e-Jauhar’s blocks 4, 6, 8, 10 and 11 on the order of the Sindh High Court (SHC), but it could not happen due to retaliation from the residents.

The operation took place in Gulistan-e-Jauhar’s Bango Gabol Goth, where the residents had illegally bifurcated 800-square-yard plots of the KDA into four and started living there, so the original allottees had approached the SHC in order to reclaim their plots.

Baloch said the KDA had allotted the plots 40 years ago, but whenever they attempted an anti-encroachment operation, they faced heavy retaliation and could not reclaim the plots. He said if they get enough force on Friday, they would resume the operation.

The KDA statement said their anti-encroachment team faced strong retaliation from the residents during the operation, adding that stones were pelted on the KDA’s anti-encroachment team.

The authority claimed that the protesters also resorted to aerial firing in a bid to stop the operation, saying that the KDA’s assistant director and police officials were injured during the operation.

Several illegally constructed restaurants were demolished in the anti-encroachment operation, while chairs, tables, stoves and gas cylinders encroaching upon the footpaths and roads were seized.