Staff Reporter
The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s (KMC) Anti-Encroachment Department carried out a massive operation in the city’s Central and Korangi districts, according to a statement released to the media on Sunday.
The statement quoted Senior Director Bashir Siddiqui as saying that an operation was conducted at the motorcycle market near UP Morr in District Central’s North Karachi.
All sunshades, grills, walls and extended portions of shops were razed to the ground with heavy machinery, while stalls, cabins and pushcarts set up on footpaths were also confiscated.
Siddiqui said that earlier this week, a similar operation was carried out in North Karachi’s motorcycle market. He said that no resistance was faced by the authorities during the operation.
In an operation at the Wireless Gate in Green Town, located in District Korangi’s Shah Faisal Colony, the anti-encroachment staff removed all cabins, food stalls, pushcarts, old vehicles and other encroachments from the footpaths and dispatched them to their store.
According to Siddiqui, as many as 17 faulty vehicles and motorbikes parked on the footpaths were removed. “They were all dumped at the KMC’s store in Gulshan-e-Iqbal.”
He said the Sindh police, the traffic police and the deputy commissioner’s office had all asked the KMC’s Anti-Encroachment Department to remove such vehicles found across the city.
Around 700 such vehicles, he said, are already parked in different parts of the city. The KMC has already planned to initiate a massive operation from November on the Supreme Court’s orders to clear food and tea kiosks that run on footpaths during the night hours.
Seven-day notices have already been issued to such businesses in the South and Central districts. Siddiqui vowed that all businesses using public spaces for their operations will be shut down.