There’s more to Al-Asif Square than meets the eye

By Zia Ur Rehman

March 26, 2016

Karachi

In the Leesa Aali Syed Jamaluddin Afghani school, over 20 students in class study social sciences in Darri language. All the students are children of Afghan refugees and the school is situated in Al-Asif Square, a neighbourhood where a resident of Karachi will feel alien in his own city, but for those who are familiar with Afghanistan, it is an area like the Makroyan apartments in Kabul.

Built in the early 1980s, Al-Asif Square, a large apartment complex comprising around 1,300 flats and 800 shops and almost 80 percent of residents are from different provinces of Afghanistan mainly Kabul, Mazar Sharif, Balkh, Shabarghan, Takhar, Kunduz and Kandahar. They are of Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek origin, said Muhammad Rasool Rasooli, the secretary general of Al-Asif Square Welfare Association.

Afghan migrants started settling in large numbers on the outskirts of the city along the Super Highway and the land around Sohrab Goth in makeshift squatter settlements.

Haji Abdullah Bukhari, a representative of Afghan refugees in Karachi, still remembers when Al-Asif Square project was completed in 1982.

“In the beginning, Urdu-speaking communities lived in Al-Asif Square but subsequently left it over security fears when the then Sindh governor lieutenant-general Jahandad Khan had ordered a police operation against drug dens in the surrounding area of the apartments. “Then, the rents of Al-Asif Square plummeted and since 1989, Afghan refugees started living there,” Bukhari told The News.

School for children

In 1992, Syed Abdul Hadi Hashmi, an elderly Afghan refugee, set up a school specifically for Afghans. It follows the Afghan curriculum and is registered with the Afghanistan’s ministry of education, which issues Afghan refugee student certificates. They use Darri (Persian) as the medium of teaching and are allowed to use Urdu, English and Pashto as source languages.

All key Afghan jihadist groups, led by Gulbadin Hekmatyar, Pir Syed Ahmed Gilani and other commanders, ran schools for Afghan refugees in Al-Asif Square and neighbouring areas in Sohrab Goth, mainly to prepare fighters for their war.

However, after Sibghatullah Mojaddedi was announced as the interim president of Afghanistan in April 1992, all jihadist factions shut down their schools and went back.

“At that time, I set up the school in Al-Asif Square because no one was there to educate the children of Afghan refugees, who could not afford the fees of private schools,” Hashmi told The News.

Negative perception

Although settlements around Al-Asif Square became the focus of attention because of the emerging political conflict within Karachi, residents and traders complain that the media were negatively portraying the residential complex.

Rasooli said Al-Asif Square was a busy commercial centre where not only Afghan refugees living in nearby neighbourhoods including Camp Jadeed, Johenjar Goth, and Sohrab Goth, but other communities also came for shopping.

“Whenever any untoward incident occurs on Abul Hassan Ispahani Road, the Sohrab Goth Bridge or the Super Highway, TV channels show footage of Al-Asif Square,” Rasooli told The News. “Media should avoid creating such a negative perception abou the complex.”

Afghan food

At Al-Asif Square, one can find everything - butchers, tailors, carpet weavers, however it is the famous restaurants serving Afghan food there that attract people from all parts of the city.

Shafiq Ahmed, who lives in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, was dining at one of these restaurants with his family. “We have been coming to Al-Asif Square regularly for several years to eat Afghani pulao with roasted chicken,” he said. “We can’t say about the situation outside, but inside Al-Asif Square it’s safe”. Real estate agents say most Afghans living in Al-Asif Square apartments are tenants. “We rent out a flat to Afghan refugees if they have proof of registration cards issued to them and can provide local guarantees,” said one of the real estate agents at Al-Asif Square.

Civic issues

Residents also complained about the government’s apathy towards addressing the civic issues of Al-Asif Square.

“The cleaning system is not managed properly because of the crowded markets at the plaza and people are seen dumping their waste on mezzanine floors,” said a shopkeeper.