Around 13 families have been spending their days under the open skies for the last one week after the Pakistan Railways (PR) Rawalpindi division evicted them from Karbala Gate in Railway Colony during an operation to retrieve its land.
Though the railway administration retrieved 8-kanals of its land from the residents, who said they had been living in the colony for the last 40 years, the families consisting of children, young, women and men have been forced to live at a specific location under the open sky near the colony.
The evicted residents said that the railway administration dispossessed them from the land, which had been on a lease for the last many years, without serving them any prior notice.
At the same time, they said that Watan Woolen Mills had taken the land from the PR on lease and they had regularly been paying rents of the quarters to the mill’s owner.
The male members of the affected families, who have set up a protest camp outside the Railway Colony, alleged that the railway administration ransacked their houses, while they were out, and threw their belongings in the open.
They said that they were bearing the brunt of eviction, rains further played havoc with their lives and their belongings have almost become useless. The participants of the protest camp said that children and elder members of their families have fallen ill due to the continuous exposure to the sun and rain.
The protesters of the camp said that they will continue to camp outside the Railway Colony unless Pakistan Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique issues order for their relocation and permanent settlement.
