LDA Avenue-1 becomes a haven for criminals

LAHORE:The recent gang-rape of a mother and her daughter in an unpopulated and under-developed residential society of Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has raised serious questions about the security of citizens.

The incident which jolted the entire country, however, has failed to put any impact on the top management of LDA as no security measures were taken by the authority to prevent any such further incidents. It was observed that most of the private housing societies have deployed security staff in their vicinities, which used to patrol day and night while CCTV cameras were also installed on the main entrances. In many private societies, the entrance of the visitors was monitored and recorded while the residents were given security stickers for their vehicles. However, LDA’s Avenue 1 was an exemption to all such security arrangements and LDA management, even after the horrific incident, they didn’t even bother to write a letter to the police to increase patrolling in this deserted area.

“Several private societies are linked with LDA Avenue-1 and residents of those societies used the main entrance of LDA Avenue-1 situated on Raiwind Road,” said Khurram, a resident of a nearby society. He said mostly he along with his family used this route in night due to traffic rush on Canal Bank Road. He said after the gang rape incident, he has stopped using this route because he extremely felt unsafe to travel with his family as there was no patrolling of security officials while street lights were also not working.

Irfan Ahmed, another resident of a nearby private society said that some months back his brother was robbed in LDA Avenue-1 because most of the area was deserted and without street lights. He said since then he and his family stopped using this route. Residents of several co-linked residential societies claimed that street lights in most of the area were not working. They said some security cameras of safe city authority were installed in this area but those were not enough. They also demanded the Chief Minister Punjab to pay a surprise visit in this area to himself see the working of street lights as well as the security situation. When contacted, Director General LDA Ahmed Aziz Tarar casually said that providing security was not the job of LDA. To another question whether LDA wrote any letter to the police to increase the security in this unpopulated area, once again he said it was not his job.

Answering a question about out of order streetlights and non-installation of CCTV cameras as well as controlled entry, he claimed that streetlights were working. LDA DG said that the government has created separate departments and every department should do its work properly.