THE physical growth of this beleaguered city can be divided into four broad phases. Post-partition it is a saga of growing neglect and deliberate apathy towards daylight robbery.

Up to 1947, the British developed numerous orderly Quarters — Saddar, Preedy, Frere Town, Civil Lines, Jamshed, Serai, Soldier Bazar, Keamari, Garden and so forth to house a population of 300,000.

The second phase began with independence, and a chaotic few years before the government found its feet, established the Karachi Development Authority in the late 1950s, and, under the able guidance of Cornell-trained planner Ahmed Ali, set up many well-planned schemes, societies and townships to provide for a population that by the late 1970s had grown to around five million. The needs of the poor were not adequately addressed, and they became squatters on river banks and other open government land.

With the exploding population and increasing influx of rural migrants and refugees, by the 1980s government and political corruption and greed had escalated, and unlawful conversion and unplanned densification of Karachi's urban-planning schemes accelerated. This third phase led to creeping degradation of the built environment, with overloading of civic infrastructure and amenities, with six million, over half the turn-of-the-millennium population, living in katchi abadis.

The fourth phase, spanning the past decade, has seen an entire abandonment of the planning imperative, with government land in Karachi (especially on the outskirts in Gadap and Keamari Towns) converted into a commodity for open loot and plunder by political mafias. Amenity and open spaces in the city are being openly invaded and occupied, whilst the provincial and city governments and politicians stand by, shamelessly pretending to be helpless, but actively orchestrating criminal activity. This philistine behaviour is exhibited by the very 'leaders' and ministers who never tire of trumpeting their undying devotion to the country and its beloved awam.

On July 15 former Senator Nisar Memon asked me to accompany him to Gutter Baghicha on Manghopir Road to look into the brazen capture by political jiyalas of 20 acres in Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Park. I contacted the guardian and protector of our city, Nazim Mustafa Kamal, and invited him along. He was busy, and deputed Sajjad Husain Abbasi, the CDGK's top revenue official in charge of protecting the city's land assets.

We found intense building activity with many hundreds of houses being constructed in the normal 'rush' under the protection of armed guards. EDO Abbasi warned us not to go close to the construction activity as firing could start, and so we moved away to another section of the park where some 300 area residents had assembled. Significantly, the unlawful building work is taking place in that part of Gutter Baghicha which the city government designated as a park under the 2005 directives of Gen Pervez Musharraf, and under the 2008 orders of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Nisar Memon and local activists made impassioned speeches on behalf of the poor of Trans-Lyari calling upon the governor and chief minister to immediately visit the area, meet the locals and act judiciously as custodians of land and law. They also requested the honourable chief justice of Pakistan to exercise suo motu powers to deliver speedy justice and earn the goodwill of deprived and weak citizens. The media was out in force to cover the event and that evening Saima Mohsin of Dawn News' 'Newseye' took the city nazim to task for the ever-increasing encroachments all over the city, especially on amenity plots and parks. His response was that without control of the police there was nothing he could do. He objected to the MQM being singled out as land-grabbers, pointing out that the other coalition partners and various political groups were indulging in similar shenanigans.

Last year, two columns of mine traced the chronicle of Gutter Baghicha, an 1894 municipal sewage treatment plant and farm that has been progressively reduced by post-1947 encroachments from 1,017 to 480 acres, and related how in 1993, when the government tried officially to allot 200 acres to the KMC Officer's Housing Society and 50 acres to industrialists, local residents and environmentalists had protested against this desecration of an amenity park area.

The issue has been fought in the superior courts, and now Abdul Sattar Edhi and I have joined a public interest suit (1484/08) being heard in the Sindh High Court, with Barrister Gilbert Naimur Rahman leading the fray. Gilbert is despondent, wondering what the point is in filing a 'contempt of court application'.

As he wrote, ... the governments of Sindh and Karachi are not prepared to carry out their legal obligations to enforce high court orders. This is unfortunate as the judiciary has no force to implement its orders and has to rely upon the security agencies under the home department. This is creating a very dangerous situation
and could result in desperate people taking to the streets and enforcing their rights, whether real or imaginary, resulting in chaos. We already witnessed this in 2007 when thousands of people invaded the high court of Sindh at Karachi and brought its work to a standstill.

Do we citizens actually care anymore for the city of Karachi? The politicians for sure do not. The government of the day has abdicated its duty to protect public property and the lives of its citizens. Can the courts act in time to save us from total anarchy?