Pakistan running on autopilot, system cannot survive further, says Kamal

KARACHI: Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) Chairman and former Karachi mayor Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday said the Nasla Tower should not be turned into “another Lal Masjid by pushing the oppressed against the wall”.

Addressing the media during his visit to the residential building, Kamal said that the problem of the affected families could be solved within 24 hours.

“If the government doesn’t have the money to pay the victims, there are thousands of builders the government can collect the required money from by creating a pool, and the amount can later be refunded to the builders by adjusting the same in the Sindh Building Control Authority [SBCA] challans.”

He said the misfortunes of Karachi were endless, pointing out that whenever the state institutions or the federal government had to flex their muscles, they turned to the city.

“The people of Karachi respect the law, so everyone targets this city. If a building needs to be blown up, blow up the SBCA building, which is a hotbed of illegal constructions, to stop illegal constructions in the city.”

He added that the provincial government was giving away hundreds of acres of land on a daily basis as gifts and political bribes, but it did not have an inch of land to provide alternative accommodation to the tower’s affected families.

“These 44 families of the Nasla Tower won’t just disappear into thin air. They will have to go somewhere, they will have to exist somewhere.” Kamal said the rulers could not solve any problems because they were the real cause of the problems. He asked that while these buildings were being constructed, why did anyone not check into it. “The officials of the SBCA and the [defunct] Karachi Building Control Authority were not asked anything, no dismissal took place.”

He said Nasla Tower residents were being persecuted. “What’s the sin of those whose electricity, water, gas and drainage lines have been cut off? The Nasla Tower shouldn’t be made a matter of personal ego, but the residents should be ensured prompt payment in the light of the Supreme Court’s orders.” He added that millions of cases were pending before the judiciary, and to fix Pakistan’s issues, the issues related to the institutions need to be fixed.

He also said former chief justice Saqib Nisar had collected donations from the entire nation in the name of a dam’s construction, but today neither Nisar nor the address of the dam was known. The PSP chief said Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry’s son was accused of taking millions of rupees as bribe to settle a case by his father, who was the then chief justice. “The country is running on autopilot. Under such circumstances, this system can’t survive further.”