South Asia: Drive for profit fuels effort to evict poor
By Tania Siddiqi posted on May 12, 2021
Karachi residents resist ongoing illegal demolitions and forced evictions.
In Pakistan, Karachi Bachao Tehreek (KBT), an alliance of local activists struggling against evictions and illegal land grabs, reported that Bahria Town personnel, the town’s private guards, and Sindh province’s police entered various Goths [small neighborhoods populated mainly by Sindhi people] May 7 with heavy machinery, intending to further encroach on poor Indigenous people’s lands.
Abdul Hafeez, a member of Sindh Indigenous Rights Alliance, informed the newspaper “Dawn” that guards and police attempted to destroy crops with bulldozers in Kamal Khan Jokhio Goth. Community members responded by engaging in acts of resistance against the intruders. After one person threw a stone at Bahria Town personnel, guards began shooting at the villagers.
KARACHI: Armed robbers killed a policeman and wounded a boy over resistance in Lyari in the wee hours of Friday, according to police.
Baghdadi SHO Abdul Ghaffar Shah said Constable Moeez Khursheed Ahmed, 25, was standing near his home on Meer Mohammad Road when armed pillion riders wearing masks tried to snatch his cell phone. As he put up resistance, the suspects opened indiscriminate fire and rode away.
The constable died on the spot while six-year-old Abu Bakr suffered injuries. The body and injured were shifted to the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi.
The area SHO said investigators collected nine spent bullet casings fired from a 9mm pistol from the crime scene. “Apparently, it was a robbery attempt but the police are also investigating other aspects of the murder,” he added. The slain policeman was unmarried and only bread earner of his family comprising four sisters and father. He was a guard of the SP-City.