Nasla Tower victims

The Federal Government may claim that it is leading a campaign against land encroachment, but its ignorance of some cases and persecution of others has shown that its ideology is skewed. A tangled web of co-conspirators is responsible for the sprawling issue of land encroachment and a deep cleansing is required to get to the bottom of the matter. Yet the bulk of the burden of this anti-encroachment drive is on the shoulders of the public.

In November, digitalization of land records through cadastral mapping led to the discovery that land worth more than Rs. 5.5 trillion is currently encroached upon. Prime Minister Imran Khan promised to get this land back, while simultaneously admitting to a lack of resources needed to conduct the operation against encroachers.

Nasla Tower is the latest in the series of structures that have been the focus of the anti-encroachment drive. In June, the Supreme Court found that the plot of Nasla Tower was encroaching upon a service road and 341 square yards had been illegally added to the plot. The Supreme Court took the difficult decision to raze the building, much to the consternation of its residents. The verdict resulted in a series of appeals as well as protests. But despite the public outcry, the demolition of the building began in November.

Residents contested the ruling on the basis that they did not have any reason to suspect wrongdoing since the builders had obtained 17 NOCs from various authorities. The protests were further fuelled by the fact that the residents had not yet been provided in writing any promise of a refund from the Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan (ABAD) despite the Supreme Court’s instructions to the builders to compensate the residents. Meanwhile, real estate prices have skyrocketed, making it impossible for most people to acquire housing with most residents having to find temporary housing.

The Nasla Towers case has highlighted the widespread involvement of authorities in land encroachment. According to reports, the builders allowed possession without obtaining the relevant completion certificates from the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA). On the other hand, the SBCA should not have let the possession take place until they had completed the paperwork. The Board of Revenue was also remiss in not intervening in the situation. The irregularities were covered up, leaving residents in limbo.

The razing of apartment buildings for being illegal encroachment has disgruntled the residents as well as ABAD. While ABAD has been vociferous against the razing of Nasla Towers, they are not entirely blameless in this scenario. Extending buildings illegally has for long been a norm in Karachi and it is time that such underhanded agreements between the builders and the provincial government authorities are terminated once and for all. Unfortunately, the ones who have to bear the brunt of these dealings are the anxious residents of these buildings who are left homeless and financially ruined as seen in the Nasla Towers case while the real culprits responsible for illegal construction on stolen government land go scot free.

The problem of illegal construction is spread throughout Karachi and other large cities of Pakistan, and a permanent solution is needed to safeguard the citizens’ economic safety. The suggestion of regulating such buildings, as suggested by Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani, might work in some situations where the encroached land is negligible.

Instead of displaced citizens being left without any relief, the parties responsible for providing faulty NOCs and facilitating illegal construction need to be apprehended. A zero-tolerance policy against any kind of illegal encroachment needs to be put in place to prevent any such incidents in the future.

The writer is Sub-Editor, Bol News