District Central Deputy Commissioner Talha Saleem has refuted media reports that he has submitted comments in the Sindh High Court (SHC) “refusing to pay compensation to those affected by the Gujjar Nullah operation against encroachments”.
He said that those affected by the operation have already been paid Rs90,000 as compensation. The deputy commissioner also disassociated himself from a document being circulated in the media terming it his official comments submitted to the SHC.
The document says that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation had cancelled all the leases granted in respect of the land located on and along 30 big and small storm water drains in Karachi in 2015 after a resolution of the city council when Shoaib Siddiqui was the city’s administrator.
It is constitutional petition No. 077/2015 in which Saleem had allegedly said that the Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority had illegally issued lease of the nullah’s land, and that since the leases in favour of the petitioners were illegal, they were not entitled to claiming any sort of compensation.
The comments also mentioned the drains whose land was illegally leased out: the Gujjar Nullah, the Orangi Nullah, the Shershah Nullah, the Hub River Road Nullah, the Baldia Kalri Nullah, the Pitcher Nullah, the City Nullah, the Soldier Bazaar Nullah, the Frere Nullah, Nehr-e-Khayyam, the Manzoor Colony Nullah, the Mehmoodabad Nullah, the Zahri House Nullah, the Korangi Industrial Area Nullah, the Road 10000 Nullah, the Mehran Highway Nullah, the Chakor Nullah, the Azeempura Nullah, the Pehlwan Goth Nullah, the Sangol Nullah, the Haroonabad Nullah, the Lalaabad Nullah, the Mochko Nullah, the Road 12000 Nullah, the Golden Town Nullah, the Road 7000 Nullah, the Road 5200 Nullah, the Road 4200 Nullah, the Road 9000 Nullah and the Mehran Cut Nullah.
In a press statement released on Friday night, Saleem said that the anti-encroachment operation at the Gujjar Nullah is being carried out on the directions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He said that the District Central administration is implementing the Sindh government’s policy of rehabilitation of those affected by the operation.
It is pertinent to mention here that Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had announced during a news conference last month that the provincial government had decided to allot 80-square-yard plots to the 6,500 families displaced as a result of the massive operation to clear the city’s nullahs of encroachments.
