Report
On 28th October 2021, the demolition of at least 60 jhuggis were carried out in sector G-11/4 of the federal capital rendering hundreds of men, women and children without a roof over their heads has yet again proven the apathetic cruelty of Islamabad administration towards the low-income citizens.
The so called “Islamabad the Beautiful” has historically been an anti-poor city, favouring the high-income and pushing the low-income into the corner. The city was designed for tge elite and the rich and witg no place for the working class, the Islamabad ‘Master Plan’ is evidence of this.
The home of the working poor of the federal caiptal, have faced the brunt of the city’s bureacracy for decades. In 2015, the caiptal administration demolished the I-11 katchi abadi, home to over twenty thousand citizens.
On October 28, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) police arrived at the G-11/4 katchi abadi and demolited it without any prior official notice. The capital administration’s action is also in complete contravention to the stay order of the Supreme Court against summary evictions that has been in place since 2015 and the Islamabad High Court stay order of August 2021.
Awami Workers Party (AWP) leaders Aasim Sajjad Akhtar and Shahjehan Wagarpal alongside Progressive Students Federation (PrSF) student activists attempted to halt the eviction by showing CDA and ICT crews copies of the Supreme Court order but the officials in question not only continued to ruthlessly bulldoze the settlement with impunity but also brazenly threatened the activists as well as local residents.
Most households were not even allowed to remove their paltry belongings from their shanties and now face nights under an open sky without so much as water and food to sustain their children. Demolition of G-11 katchi abadi is evidence of Islamabad’s elitism.
The AWP has organised for years with local communities from Karachi to Islamabad against mass evictions. Whether dispossession is enforced by the state, and where it entities like Bahria Town are in the lead, repression against those who engage in peaceful resistance to defend their homes and lands is commonplace and intensifying. Meanwhile katchi abadi residents of settlements like that in G-11/4 hail from the most vulnerable class background and are treated with utter contempt by police and CDA officials, thus making it almost impossible for them to stand up to the repeated violations of their rights to shelter, and life. The AWP will lobby both the superior judiciary as well as the capital administration for reparations, but ultimately the responsibility for the welfare of the poorest segments of society rests with the elected government. The AWP slammed the PTI regime for its vacuous slogans of establishing the ‘Ryasat-e-Madina’, when in fact it is bulldozing poor people’s homes amidst an inflationary spiral with no precedent in recent times.
The current government is in fact committed only to a financialised model of ‘development’ in which profiteers make billions by dispossessing the poor and building gated housing schemes. Such speculative real estate is considered far more important than the current or future welfare of millions of working people who provide labour to sustain cities across the country.
The Katchi Abadi residents of G-11/4 who are left homeless in the cusp of winter, mostly consist of sanitation and domestic workers that already live with less to no facilities. Members of Progressive Students Federation, AWP Islamabad Rawalpindi and women democratic front helped the affectees in pursuing legal action. The members visited the Islamabad High Court to submit the applications on the affectee’s behalf and requested the Chief Justice of IHC to take immediate notice of this critical issue. They also called a public appeal to donate the affected families in the Katchi Abadis to provide food, blankets, bedding, cylinders, shelter and basic necessities.
Picture source: Awami Workers Party- A woman (resident of G-11/4 katchi abadi) is shouting and trying to stop the CDA official who is bulldozing her jhuggi.
