KARACHI: Maintaining that his party was against all types of encroachments, Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal said on Tuesday that the govern­ment should have made alternative arrangements before “displacing hundreds of thousands of people and snatching their livelihood in the name of anti-encroachment operation”.

Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters, he said that the government had promised 10 million new jobs, but in its initial days it had made hundreds of thousands of people jobless.

He said that when he was the mayor of Karachi he had demolished 28,000 illegally constructed houses to pave the way for construction of the Lyari Expressway.

“But the then judiciary, government and other institutions had decided that the people would not be rendered shelter-less and instead they would be shifted in three new settlements,” he said adding that infrastructure work was carried out first and then those living in illegal settlements along the Lyari River were given alternative plots and Rs50,000 each for their rehabilitation.

He said likewise the government had provided alternative plots to people affected by the Preedy Street rehabilitation plan and then it had demolished 1,285 houses.

Mr Kamal appealed to the apex court to keep an eye on the operation being carried out on its directives so that “those currently demolishing shops will not permit people to resettle on the same places after taking heavy bribes”.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2018