Residents of Quaid-e-Azam Colony hold protest demo
By Asim Hussain

ISLAMABAD—Residents of Quaid-e-Azam Colony katchi abadi in Chaklala Scheme III Monday held a protest demonstration against the authorities for what they said were veiled eviction threats, saying that they had been living in the abadi since 1932 and would sacrifice everything they had to resist any eviction attempt.
Women, men and children of the almost 150 households in the abadi came together and protested outside the public college that is adjacent to the abadi saying that the principal of the college is one of the major figures associated with attempts to evict them.
Speaking on the occasion local organizer of the All-Pakistan Alliance of Katchi Abadis Shafiq Mohammad said that the vast majority of residents in the abadi work with army-related organizations in the cantonment area and have been working in these offices/domestic residences for decades. He said that it was cruel irony that the college administration was in cahoots with Ten Corps as well as administrators of the Cantonment Board to harass the residents of the abadi given that they have served the area for as long as they have.
Shafiq Mohammad also slammed the fact that army officers live in complete luxury in homes right next to the abadi and that the army is control of the entire country but that it is not willing to accept the existence of a katchi abadi which barely takes up any space and causes no inconvenience to those around it.
He said that this attitude explains why the Musharraf’s government faced such abject humiliation at the polls on February 18 and now it is up to the new incoming elected government to prove that it is more sensitive and committed to people rather than military generals. In particular he said that the residents of the abadi refused to leave their homes and would not accept any suggestion of alternative settlement as they all work in the Cantt and cannot afford to be shifted to any far-away place.
Alliance chairperson Aasim Sajjad Akhtar said on the occasion that every government pays lip service to the katchi abadi phenomenon, making grand pronouncements to win public favour but hardly ever following through.