ISLAMABAD: Representatives of dozens of katchi abadi (slums) from across the federal capital have appealed to the Supreme Court to uphold their constitutional right to housing and not vacate a stay order that has been in place against summary evictions since 2015.
They were addressing a press conference at the National Press Club on Thursday.
Organised by the Awami Workers Party, whose leaders filed the original petition in the Supreme Court in 2015, the press conference noted that the SC had reopened the case in early January after a dormant period of almost 10 years, and that this had generated a great deal of anxiety amongst katchi abadi dwellers in Islamabad and all other metropolitan centres of the country, a total population of more than 25 million working people.
Speaking on the occasion, lead petitioner and AWP leader Aasim Sajjad said that the original petition in the SC was filed in July 2015 when the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and then PML-N government were arbitrarily bulldozing katchi abadis in Islamabad.
The biggest eviction took place on July 31, 2015 in sector I-11 when a settlement of more than 20,000 Pashtun workers was demolished after which the Supreme Court heard the petition and issued a stay order against any further summary evictions, he added.
Sajjad said that the court had instructed the CDA as well as the federal government to demonstrate that it had a viable plan to deal with the housing demands of low-income segments of the urban population but in the intervening decade Islamabad and other big cities in the country have become increasingly hostage to real estate developers, speculators and land grabbers, meaning that the shortfall of housing for the urban poor has only worsened and this is why katchi abadis continue to come into being.
He demanded that the SC hold the authorities to account and not vacate the stay order until and unless a fundamental change takes place in the urban planning paradigm.
Representatives of katchi abadis in sector I-9, I-10, H9, G-11, F-12, G-7, G-8 and many others also spoke, highlighting the daily indignities that they are subjected to by the CDA, police and other law enforcement agencies that take small bribes, put them in jail on trumped up charges and continuously harass them.
They emphasised that the SC stay order had at least provided them some relief from the incessant threat of eviction, and that they were now extremely concerned that this relative security would soon be removed.
They warned the law is increasingly seen as oppressive, because it is in the name of the law and so-called ‘anti-encroachment’ drives that katchi abadis, rehri walas and many other working class homes and livelihoods are destroyed.
Meanwhile, the biggest and most powerful land grabbers, including state institutions, are completely exempt from any accountability for their actions.
This is why, they said, ordinary working people are almost completely disillusioned with slogans such as the ‘rule of law’ because in practice the law provides no relief to those without money and influence.
The speakers made clear that they would continue to undertake peaceful resistance against any forceful attempt to dispossess them of the rooves over their head and that they expect that the Supreme Court will maintain its position that shelter is a basic constitutional right of all.
They said if the state is not willing to provide affordable housing to working people, then it should not deprive them of the katchi abadis that they have constructed through their own labour and without any support from the authorities. In the event that the CDA and federal government are given a clean chit to resume evictions, katchi abadi dwellers will lose the little remaining hope in the Supreme Court.