MY grandfather, who passed away many years ago, had purchased a residential plot of land in the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation’s (PIDC) Multipurpose Cooperative Housing Society in scheme 33 area of Karachi.

The trauma and injustice that followed spanning three generations and five decades is beyond words. This residential society was planned in the early 1980s by the federal government to offer affordable housing to PIDC employees.

The pioneer and original buyers have already paid all their dues and to this date possess legal documentation and paperwork. However, for reasons only known to the relevant authorities, the Sindh government eliminated the society’s central association in 2011 and appointed a ‘special administrator’ while freezing all existing accounts. This was followed by seizure of all legal documentation from the office of the society on the orders of the Sindh government.

The families of the original property-owners witnessed many years of courtroom sessions, illegal spoliation and destruction of records, illegal allocation of land, etc. The original allottees, mostly belonging to the lower middle class families with a rental history of 76 years, had to endure legal expenses with indescribable anguish and trauma.

Some rulings may have been at the minimum in favour of the society, but the real and factual administration and original property-owners are not able to visit the property site due to the threat of land mafia agents right at the entrance of the housing society.

The police are unable to counter these encroachments, or to provide any relief to the original property-owners. This case is currently pending in Sindh High Court (SHC) with no visible solution and no kind of a final decision in the near future. For reasons known and unknown, court proceedings are routinely postponed, rescheduled and delayed. The case is being dragged unnecessarily, causing severe misery and trauma due to the injustice rendered to the families of the deceased and retired PIDC employees.

Will the relevant authorities make sure justice is served at least to the third gene- ration of the land allottees, and culprits in this case are put behind the bars?

Name withheld on request
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2023