Anti-encroachment drives without providing alternative space to affected people slammed

KARACHI: Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) Chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal on Sunday said that continuing with operations against encroachments in the city without providing alternative space to the affected families was not only a sign of government’s incompetence and indifference but also a matter of grave concern.

He expressed these views during an event where dozens of youths of District East joined the PSP.

Kamal said incompetent rulers were not resolving problems of the people. “The people whose houses are being demolished will not dissipate in thin air, they won’t die but will settle in some other drain site in the same city,” he remarked.

“The state is like a mother, it should act as one and provide shelter to all the affected families. The occupants of drains are also the citizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”

The PSP chief said no strategy was formulated by the government for the current operation. “The honorable judiciary should take notice of this grim situation and summon the rulers and question their strategy as this behaviour of the government is not only creating chaos but also a hindrance in the drain cleaning and will also affect the development work as usual. The ultimate sufferers of these situations will be none other than the poor masses,” he said.

“During our mayorship period, we set precedent for the rulers as to how to manage the situation when it comes to demolishing encroachments for the development projects without any chaos or agitation,” he claimed.

He said during his tenure as the mayor, he had to demolish 34 thousand houses for the construction of the Lyari Expressway but not a single demonstration was held against the move.

Kamal asked the incumbent administration to provide alternative spaces to the people affected by the anti-encroachment drives in the same manner in which the affected people of the Lyari Expressway project were provided spaces.

For the construction of the Lyari Expressway, the state, judiciary, and local government built three settlements with the provision of all the basic amenities, he said. The PSP chairman advised the administration to follow the same strategy, stating that there was ample vacant land available in Karachi that could be used to provide alternative space to the affected families.

He said the PSP was the only political party that was offering a workable solution to all the public problems concerning the people of Pakistan. “It is now up to the authorities to decide whether they will accept our solutions today or a few years later, but the longer they take to accept our solution, the greater damage the state has to bear,” he added.

“Today, people are leaving the political parties of the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers and joining the PSP in large numbers on a daily basis,” he claimed, adding that this was the proof of the fact that the future belonged to only the PSP.