Sea View resident denies involvement in tree-felling incident

A resident of Sea View in the upmarket Defence Housing Authority (DHA) neighbourhood has denied reports that claim she was involved in the chopping down of trees in the locality ahead of the July 25 general elections for allegedly facilitating a political party’s corner meeting.

Humaira Khan said that she heads the Association of Defence Residents and that the trees were felled by the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) staff because they were diseased. She said a conspiracy has been hatched against her by some people who wish to defame her by levelling baseless allegations against her and by involving her in fabricated inquiries.

Referring to a story published in this newspaper on July 20 about the tree-felling incident, Humaira rejected all the allegations against her in the report and said her opponents had hatched a well-planned conspiracy against her and the sole purpose of their false claims was to defame her.

She clarified that no FIR of any sort has been registered against her at any police station and that she did not verbally abuse anyone, use foul language or slap any woman.

Humaira also denied name-dropping, saying that she never used the names of Mustafa Kamal or Anis Qaimkhani of the Pak Sarzameen Party in order to terrorise the residents of Sea View, adding that she never told anyone that she would make their lives hell if they tried to stop her.

She said a fabricated case was registered at the Darakhshan police station and her name was to be included in it during the course of investigation, but when she demanded an inquiry into it, the CBC withdrew its police case.

Humaira said the DHA has very strict rules and it never allows any individual or political party to hold a corner meeting in an open area in its jurisdiction, adding that the DHA would never allow anyone to fell trees for a political meeting.

She said she has never been involved in any anti-environment or anti-social activity, adding that she is a part of the ‘Go Green DHA’ tree plantation campaign that was launched by the DHA on July 25, 2016.

She said she had also planted a tree along with DHA Administrator Brig Zubair Ahmed.

Humaira said the chopping down of trees was carried out by the CBC staff because they believed that the trees were infected and had to be felled.

She said that all the defamatory statements against her that were included in the news story were made by people requesting anonymity because they were part of the pre-planned conspiracy to stop her from highlighting the corruption of her opponents.