KARACHI, Dec 23: While more than 70 families in Sector 11½ of Orangi Town were rendered homeless almost two years ago when the town administration declared them encroachers, 50 more houses in the area were bulldozed in a fresh operation launched on Tuesday.

However, the space made available after the previous action is being re-allotted to new applicants for residential purposes, Dawn has learnt.

A large number of area people, who gathered outside their houses to protest against the administration, denied the official allegations that their houses were built on encroached pieces of land. Instead, they claimed, they had been residing in the vicinity for more than two decades.

“Several pieces of machinery including bulldozers entered the locality backed by the area police, town officials and political activists,” said an area resident, adding that they announced that people should vacate the houses before the demolition began. “The people initially resisted but surrendered amid threats and scuffles with the officials.”

The town administration demolished houses situated in Mansoor Nagar along the Orangi Cottage Industrial Zone in February 2007 on the basis of the argument that the residential area lay under the industrial zone and was being illegally used for residential purposes.

After over a year, however, when the city government has already initiated an infrastructure development project and transferred possession documents to the allottees of the industrial zone, pieces of land in Mansoor Nagar, which were evacuated by the authorities to integrate the land with the industrial zone, seem to have become a major source of business for a group in the administration and the land mafia, which has been re-allotting plots on “encroached land” to new applicants for residential purposes.

The fresh action from the town administration came as a rude shock for the area people, who have demanded of the city nazim to look into the matter suspecting manoeuvring by some town officials, who have tried to prevent every possible communication between the higher authorities and the affected families.

“A man named Shakir who introduced himself as a land department official first came and asked people to vacate their houses without any prior notice and on their resistance brought in machinery and bulldozed their houses,” said another area resident.

While the town administration preferred not to comment on the issue, area people have decided to take up the matter at a higher level and have appealed to the authorities concerned to intervene.

“After our efforts through media we’ve managed to draw the governor’s attention. He has assured us that he will look into the matter and solve our problems,” said Salim Shahid, general secretary of the Awami Welfare Association, an area organisation.

However, he said, the town administration’s unannounced action in haste cast serious doubts over the plans of some officials who wanted to put the issue under the rug before higher authorities made any decision.

“Families affected by the town’s administration move belonged to the poor and labour class who can’t afford rented houses. A large number of people have already been living in makeshift arrangements since February 2007 while the fresh action has made more families homeless in such a harsh weather,” he added.