Kurri village residents attack CDA staff

Groundbreaking ceremony of the Park Enclave housing scheme fell heavy on the Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Monday when around hundreds of Kurri village affectees attacked the venue of the ceremony, leaving several civic agency’s employees injured. The venue of the ceremony was selected on park road, near park enclave and Kurri village. But several affectees of Kurri village gathered on the road early in the morning to stage protest against the CDA stakeholders, they blocked the road by burning tyres and chanted slogans against the civic body. Ignoring the protest, chairman CDA Engineer Farkhand Iqbal and PM Task force chief reached the venue, about two hours late from the scheduled time, to inaugurate the development work of Park enclave. But after a short time of their arriving at the ceremony, a large number of protestors attacked the venue and started beating the CDA officials present in the ceremony mercilessly with sticks and rods that left many of them injured.
However, PM task force chief and chairman CDA succeeded to save themselves fleeing while traveling in their vehicles and they remained unhurt. But unfortunately the other employees of the CDA enforcement directorate and those who were there to attend the ceremony got severe injuries during the clash.
The demand of the protestors was that they will not allow the authority to carry out any development work in Park enclave until their problems are resolved. Several years ago the CDA decided to establish a model village at the place of Kurri village for which it acquired the land of the locals. But after failing to pay compensation to the people from whom land was acquired by the authority, it decided to allot plots to the locals on Build Up Property (BUP) basis. But the affectees cannot get any plot or compensation in return of the land which the authority had acquired from them several years ago. One of the reasons behind the delay in awarding of land to the affectees is that during the survey of BUP for allotting plots to the affectees, some CDA officials in connivance with the influential locals made fake list of names that resulted in the illegal allotment of hundreds of plots, which were intended for Kuri villagers by the CDA, in compensation for their land which the civic body had acquired for developing a model village. FIA is still probing into the matter and apparently the authority was reluctant to carry out development work of Kurri village due to delay in investigation of the said scam.
Sources in the CDA told Pakistan Today that the authority had already faced hurdles in development of Park enclave by Kurri village affectees. They informed that during the recent meting of senate sub-committee chairman CDA also informed the committee that though the Park enclave is also located near the Kurri village, its affectees also created hurdles in development of Park enclave, but despite all the resentments the authority would start construction work in park enclave. Sources added that the committee also emphasized on the CDA officials to start development in Kurri, but the CDA officials refuse to do so, contending that first the FIA have to finalise the award of Kurri village so that the CDA would be able to get possession of land from the affectees. But the alarming situation for the CDA is that the future of its dream housing scheme which is also said to be a jewel of Islamabad is in jeopardy. Already the delay in development of Park enclave has perturbed its allotees who were trying to get back their money which they had paid to the authority.
Earlier talking to reporters, Chairman CDA said that the Authority is committed to the development of Park Enclave within 18 months time as CDA has 100 per cent possession of the land on which the Park Enclave Housing Scheme has been envisaged. He said that CDA administration organised an event to inaugurate the development work; however, some people tried to halt the development process unlawfully and voiced slogans, adding that no one in these people belong to the area of the Park Enclave housing scheme rather they were from the Kuri Village and other adjacent areas. He said Park Enclave is a unique housing project and the whole project land was under CDA’s possession and the issues raised by the locals mainly pertained to Kuri Village and other areas. He assured the residents that they would be taken onboard on all developments in this regard.
The chairman said he had already directed Member Estate to resolve the issues of the property in the areas of Park Enclave Phase-II which the CDA was contemplating to launch with a view to provide housing facilities for lower income groups.