Hamid Mir
This matter is very strange and there is not a single poor person in it, rather all are rich people. The owner of a high-rise residential building opposite a five-star hotel on the Constitution Highway in Islamabad has long been a challenge to the constitution and laws of Pakistan. Many years ago, he took a place here to build a five-star hotel, but after some time, disregarding the law, he built a residential building here, the apartments of which were sold at very high prices. To protect his illegal project, he gave apartments to some powerful people at very cheap prices. I also know such people who took loans and paid for these expensive apartments. The CDA took this illegal project to court, but the higher courts also declared the project legal, but the CDA did not give up.
The problem of CDA was that if surrender was made here, then CDA would lose the moral justification for acting against illegal encroachments built by common people. It would not be wrong to say that this has become a fight between two mafias. One mafia is inside CDA. This mafia facilitates many other mafias. The land mafia cuts down the forests and mountains of Islamabad with the connivance of high-ranking CDA officers and starts housing schemes here. If any government officer does not become a part of this connivance, he is transferred. I know a former CDA chairman. He was offered a bribe of one billion rupees to stop him from carrying out an operation against an illegally constructed building, which he rejected. The interests of the powerful people of the country have clashed so much on the issue of the controversial building on the Constitution Highway that they have come face to face. The federal cabinet has been divided on this issue. Interestingly, the influential people living in the Grand Hyatt building belong to all major political parties. They include many retired government officials and diplomats. But this is not the only building that has been built against the law.
There are many other illegal constructions in the Red Zone and Blue Area of Islamabad. They also need attention. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has stopped the operation against Grand Hyatt located on One Constitution Avenue and formed an inquiry committee. I personally sympathise with the residents of this building because they bought the apartment by paying regular money. If there is any fault, it is with this gentleman who has pocketed every government since the era of General Pervez Musharraf. This gentleman also gets decisions in his favour from the higher courts and also stops the operation of the CDA. But two kilometres away from this building is the area of Noorpur Shahan. Here is the shrine of the Bari Imam, also known as Hazrat Abdul Latif Bari Sarkar. There are centuries-old settlements around this shrine, including the Noorpur Shahan area. Quaid-e-Azam University was established on the land of Noorpur Shahan. Another old settlement nearby is Malpur Abad. There are graves that are several hundred years old in the graveyards of this settlement.
The CDA has been conducting an operation in Noorpur Shahan and Malpur for several months. Hundreds if not thousands of houses built before the formation of Pakistan have been demolished. Ever since the Prime Minister stopped the operation against Grand Hyatt, the people of Noorpur Shahan and Malpur have been asking what is our fault? We have legal papers and court decisions. In our case, no one has formed an inquiry committee. Is it the fault of these people only that they are poor? In my humble opinion, this is not a problem of rich and poor. This is a problem of the rule of law. The operation that the CDA started in Noorpur Shahan and Malpur was illegal. In this operation, houses were also demolished whose owners had legal papers. The CDA did not only demolish residential houses but also cut down countless trees in some areas. Malpur is a place that the CDA itself has declared as a model village. Malpur is a place that the government of Pakistan has a national responsibility to protect because Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had announced in 1944 that the capital of Pakistan would be established at the foot of the mountains of this beautiful place. Maulana Ismail Zabih has written in detail about the history of Islamabad in his book in the light of eyewitness accounts that on July 26, 1944, Quaid-e-Azam was coming to Rawalpindi from Srinagar.
Near Malpur, he stopped his car and sat in the shade of a tree on the side of the road, pointed to the mountains on his right and said that the capital of Pakistan would be established here. On this occasion, Ms. Fatima Jinnah went inside a house on the side of the road and sat with the women. This house still exists today.
The elderly owner of this house, Raja Kamal Kayani, has still preserved the tree under whose shade the Quaid-e-Azam had told Chaudhry Ghulam Abbas that the capital of Pakistan would be established here. The CDA has given notices to Raja Kamal Kiani and other residents of Malpur to vacate their places because the Punjab government is going to run a train from Rawalpindi to Murree through this area. Some time ago, I went to Malpur and saw the old tree preserved outside Raja Kamal Kiani’s house, which is waiting for a CDA bulldozer. Just think! Is the house that hosted Quaid-e-Azam and Fatima Jinnah and the house in whose entrance Quaid-e-Azam sat in the shade of the tree, our national heritage or not? Is issuing a notice to demolish this house and Malpur a national crime or not? Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has stopped the operation against a controversial building on the Constitution Highway, but will he also conduct an inquiry into the notices given to the residents of Malpur? Also, find out what housing scheme will be started there by erasing the ancient and historical areas of Nurpur Shahan and Malpur? If the residents of Grand Hyatt are very oppressed, then they should be given relief, but are the residents of Noorpur Shahan and Malpur not Pakistanis? This is not just the story of Islamabad but of every major city in Pakistan where the law stands with folded hands before the Amir. The law should be one for all. If two laws are enforced in one Pakistan, then one day there will be two laws for you too. The stick of Allah is silent, avoid this stick.
