KARACHI: More than 500 people who had booked functions at the marriage halls which were demolished by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation during an anti-encroachment operation faced a setback on Saturday when they came to know their programmes have been disrupted.

Some people had booked parties at the wedding halls many months in advance, presuming that the halls had been lawfully functioning for the past few decades.

The hall owners / managers claimed that the Friday demolition was carried out without any prior notice. They claimed they had offered their clients a complete refund of their advance or arrangement of the functions at some alternative venue.

During a visit to Gulshan-i-Iqbal, where three halls had been demolished on Friday, it was noted that even furniture and office equipment of two of them had been taken away by the KMC.

However, the third wedding hall — Junagarh Marriage Hall — wore a different look. It stood partially demolished. No furniture or other equipment had been removed.

The staff at the hall said the anti-encroachment team immediately stopped the demolition when they were shown some legal documents of the hall. Pervez Zafar Wasti, supervisor at the Junagarh Hall, said the hall was managed by the Junagarh State Muslim Federation and had been functioning for the past three decades.

According to the staff at all the three halls, between 150 and 200 functions, some of them scheduled for December, have been disrupted at each hall owing to the demolition.

He said it was not a commercial facility and the premises were used for the Junagarh community functions. Between Rs15,000 and Rs50,000 was charged for each function, while in some deserving cases even food was also provided free of cost to the community members.

He said the funds thus generated were used for the federation activities and also for holding functions related to the Junagarh State such as Junaragh Day. He said that 10 to 12 functions were held at the hall on a monthly basis. Usually, he added, the hall was booked three to four months in advance. He could not give an exact number but said around 40 to 50 functions would be affected.

He claimed that no notice had been served by the KMC before the demolition.

He said some senior community members rushed to the hall and showed documents to the KMC staffers who then stopped the operation and returned.

However, he agreed that people should not use the plots for the purpose other than which they were allotted.

Faran Club

Just a few yards away stood Faran Club Marriage Hall which somewhat presented a similar look.

Only the portion of the club where the marriage hall was located was razed during the anti-encroachment operation, while other facilities in the building such as library, dispensary, laboratory remained unharmed.

Responding to Dawn queries, manager of the marriage hall, Ikhlaq Hussain, claimed that the KMC staffers came and started the demolition without giving any prior notice. Following the demolition, he said, they took away the furniture from the hall and the office as well as some record.

He said around 200 parties had been booked till December in the hall that could accommodate around 1,000 guests at a time and had been operational for the past quarter of a century.

Since Friday evening, between 50 and 60 people who had booked their parties had come to the club as efforts were under way to arrange some alternative hall or refund their money.

He said that each function was booked for Rs50,000 to Rs60,000. The funds generated through the weddings were utilized for social welfare activities being carried out by the club.

As he was explaining the losses, the club suffered an affected client – Imran Mukhtar – arrived. He had booked his functions for July 24 and July 28.

While checking the record, the management found that one of the party had been booked in the marriage hall that had been demolished, while the other had been booked in the banquet hall. He was informed that the banquet hall was still operational and his party would not be affected, but arrangements for the other party would have to be done.

The situation faced at Civic Lawns was different in that only 100 functions had been booked there, according to its owner Mohammad Faisal.

He urged the government that his and the other halls be given time so that they could fulfill their obligations so that the people who had booked their functions would not suffer.

He agreed that his marriage lawns was constructed on a hospital plot.

He claimed that the marriage hall was used to generate funds required to build the hospital. He said the halls closure would lead to unemployment.

He said the KMC staffers also took away the hall furniture in trucks while no inventory / record had been maintained. He argued that the KMC had no authority to demolish the structure on the plot as it was the responsibility of the Karachi Building Control Authority.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2015

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