Work near Karachi’s Hill Park stopped as mayor denies land allotment

KARACHI: Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab said on Sunday that construction activity around Hill Park had been stopped, while the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) called for an inquiry by the Sindh government into the matter and the issuance of a no-objection certificate.

Hill Park, spread over 62 acres in PECHS, was developed in the early 1960s and is considered one of Karachi’s largest parks. In a statement issued late Saturday, a Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) spokesperson said the work had been halted a week earlier after a public complaint. Speaking to the media on Sunday, Wahab confirmed the stoppage and said the KMC had neither auctioned nor allotted any land to anyone.

Wahab said he had received a complaint a week before Eidul Azha and then dispatched a KMC team to the site. He said he directed officials that if any construction was taking place on KMC land, demolition should proceed. The mayor also rejected allegations by MQM-P that permission had been granted for the work, describing the criticism as political point-scoring. He maintained that Hill Park had always belonged to the KMC and would remain so.

According to the KMC spokesperson’s statement, legal proceedings were initiated after the civic body’s Land Department wrote to police asking that the construction be stopped and action taken against those responsible. The statement said an inquiry into public complaints found that the KMC had issued no allotment and no permission for construction. It added that the mayor had instructed the relevant officers to act and that the Land Department had also sought formal verification from PECHS regarding ownership of the land.

The statement further said the KMC had sent a formal letter to police seeking legal action over what it described as illegal occupation of government land. In that letter, dated May 25, the KMC land director rejected claims that any permission, approval, no-objection certificate, allotment, lease, development right, possession right or construction authorisation had been granted for land at Hill Park.

The letter stated that some individuals were relying on what it described as misread documents and NOCs to justify the construction. It said a Conditional NOC dated April 30 had been deliberately misinterpreted by certain parties. The land director said any attempt to use that document to justify occupation, encroachment, construction on, or claims over government land or KMC property was unlawful and misleading. The letter added that the Conditional NOC itself identified the plot as pertaining to the PECHS Society rather than KMC and did not confirm ownership, title, possession or legal rights.

MQM-P seeks inquiry

Earlier on Sunday, MQM-P leaders Farooq Sattar and Waseem Akhtar addressed a press conference and urged the Sindh government to investigate what they described as encroachment on Hill Park. Criticising the provincial government, the party leaders said Karachi had been left vulnerable to those seeking to exploit its resources.

Sattar said Hill Park was part of Karachi’s natural beauty and should be made greener with more tree plantation, which he said was the KMC’s responsibility. He said events on the ground were moving in the opposite direction. He also alleged that the activity formed part of a broader land-grabbing network in Karachi that, according to him, the Sindh government had allowed to function.

Sattar referred to what he described as a high court order stating that hills could not be used for commercial or residential purposes, and said the construction was also against the PECHS layout. He identified the site in question as plot 39-G4 and said the adjacent plot, 39-3G, had a boundary wall but no construction could take place there because it was not part of the master plan.

While acknowledging that the mayor had stopped the work, Sattar questioned how an NOC had been issued in the first place and called on the Sindh government to suspend the officials responsible after conducting an inquiry. He also recalled that during his term as mayor from 1988 to 1992, he had intervened to stop tree-cutting that he said was being carried out to make room for houses of prominent individuals.

During the same media talk, Sattar, whose party is an ally in the federal coalition, also urged the federal government and the establishment to intervene, saying otherwise the PPP would sell more of Karachi’s land.