The Lahore High Court decision to halt work at the $1.65 billion Lahore Orange Line Metro train project seems to have hit the Shahbaz Sharif government where it hurts the most.

The court’s ruling focuses on the city’s 11 heritage sites that are protected under the antiquities and special premises laws. It says until a new, independent study regarding its impact on the properties is carried out, the work on the much-vaunted train shall remain suspended.

The Punjab government officials overseeing the execution of the Orange Line Metro train with a soft Chinese loan are simmering with rage. They accuse the “vested interests”, which an angry Lahore Development Authority official dubbed as a bunch of liars, of working against a “pro-poor project”.

Addressing the issues of the project’s impact on heritage and environment, the court on Friday set aside the “No Objection Certificates” issued by the Director General of Archaeology that allowed the construction of the train track within the 200-foot radius of the heritage sites in the Kamil Khan Mumtaz etc Versus Government of Punjab etc case.

The court ruled that all the NOCs were issued by the DG Archaeology without lawful authority, directing him to engage independent consultants consisting of a panel of experts of international status, preferably in consultation with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), to carry out a fresh independent heritage impact assessment (HIA) study regarding protected immovable antiquities and special premises.

At an earlier hearing, the court had stayed work on the project within the 200-foot radius of the 11 heritage sites protected under the Punjab Special Premises (Preservation) Ordinance 1985 and the Antiquities Act 1975. But a two-member commission constituted by the LHC had found violations at five of the 11 heritage sites in June where the court had suspended construction work.

The judgement came not too long after Unesco’s World Heritage Committee (WHC) expressed its serious concerns at its 40th session in Istanbul about the development of the Orange Line Metro and requested the State Party (the government of Punjab) to prepare a visual impact study of the project to be presented to the centre and the advisory bodies before pursuing the works of the project associated with the Shalamar Gardens (one of the Pakistani sites on the world heritage list).

The centre had further reminded the State Party to submit to it technical details, including the HIA, of all the proposed projects that may have an impact on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property prior to their approval for review by the advisory bodies and invite a joint WHC/ICOMOS Reactive

Monitoring Mission to the property at its earliest convenience to examine the Orange Line Metro project and discuss the same with the relevant government authorities and to review the management and protection arrangement of the property.

Protecting the heritage

While the provincial government was trying to assess the possible impact of the court decision on the “pace of work” on the metro train project, the city’s civil society activists appeared jubilant over their victory.

“The judgement shows that somebody is still around to stop [the rulers] from violating the law,” an activist Maryam Hussain told Dawn.

Others like Ajaz Anwar, co-founder of the Lahore Bachao Movement, say the court’s decision is very important because it will affect all such future projects.

“It is important because it will force rulers to seek public opinion before launching similar projects that have an impact on heritage, environment, social and economic life of the people at large. They will not be able to disregard the cultural and social rights of citizens in future,” he added.

He agreed that big cities like Lahore require mass transport system, but added that the project should have been implemented underground as had been done in cities like London or, more recently, in Delhi without disturbing the cultural and social identity of the city.

“The Orange Line Metro is an election-related project. The Punjab government has destroyed the environment of Lahore and polluted its air because it was undertaken without a proper study as it wanted the train track to be visible to the public eyes [for political gains],” said Mr Anwar.

Besides setting a precedent for such future programmes, Ms Hussain argued, the judgement establishes that heritage was part of human rights in many ways.

But she says protection of the city’s heritage is just one part of the battle: the other part being obtainment of justice for tens of thousands of poor people who lost their homes, jobs and businesses during the acquisition of land for the project by the government.

“It’s a story of a wholesale land-grab in the history of Lahore,” she said. “Even schools and dispensaries were not spared. They [the authorities] demolished everything that came into their way.”

She claimed that thousands of families and businesses in the densely populated areas along the metro train route have been uprooted and displaced without any financial compensation for their losses.

“Those who went to the courts for their rights were coerced and intimidated by the authorities,” she said, adding that the land acquisition drive for the project was in violation of the laws and in complete disregard of human rights had spawned poverty and joblessness in the city.

The officials tasked to oversee the execution of the metro train project say the government will suspend the works of the project associated with the 11 heritage sites as ordered by the court — until it gets the judgement overturned by the apex court or gets a new HIA done by an independent consultant of international repute as ruled by the court.

The work on the rest of the track will continue as per schedule.

However, they insist, the government has not violated any law or damaged any protected site. “The Antiquities Act 1975 allows the director general of archaeology to permit construction within 200 feet area of a protected site as long as no damage was done to it,” argued LDA chief engineer Asrar Saeed talking to Dawn. “Now the court has ordered that the HIA be done by an independent consultant of international standing. But the question is: how will we determine ‘independence’ of the expert? The HIA rejected by the court was also carried out by an independent consultant who had worked with Unesco,” he added.

He appeared to be annoyed with non-government organisations and sections of media criticising the metro train project.

“They have been spreading false reports about the project,” he said, adding that some “vested interests went on to quote the draft decisions of the Istanbul meeting of the WHC to influence the court decision even though those were dropped in the decisions adopted later on”.

Mr Saeed’s statements are in sync with the impassioned remarks Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has been routinely making about the ‘handful of elite’ who he accuses of defying the orange train for their own interests.

The charged voices indicate we are far from having heard the last word on the project. The bugles are sounding.

The battle continues.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2016