Twenty three years of delay, seven days of selective courage
Urban Bystander
On Thursday, the Capital Development Authority went to Sector G-6 to recover government property from government people. A mega operation had been planned, and police assistance formally requested. By evening, the Authority had recovered possession of twenty six of the two hundred flats, all reportedly occupied by CDA employees. Outside the block, residents sat among beds, chairs and cartons, their household goods arranged in the open like evidence. The remaining one hundred and seventy four flats, most reportedly held by police personnel, entered Islamabad’s most secure form of accommodation; the next phase.
Asking the police to help evict the police has the administrative elegance of asking a mirror to arrest its reflection. The mirror sought an extension. The wider operation, a spokesman explained, had been postponed.
Published reports place the government apartment block near Aabpara Market within a 1998 development scheme approved by the federal cabinet. The idea was that government servants would live upward rather than outward, sparing the land bank another generation of bungalows. CDA completed the two hundred flats in 2003. They were intended for transfer to the housing ministry for onward allotment to government employees. The building was completed. The handover, being made of paperwork rather than concrete, proved structurally weaker. It became the block’s longest serving absence.
Twenty three years later, the builder had become landlord, eviction authority, renovation contractor and prospective auctioneer. A career arc no waiting employee was ever offered.
The missing handover left the door open, and history moved in. In 2005, survivors and displaced families were temporarily sheltered in the flats after the earthquake. In 2007, police personnel began occupying units around the Lal Masjid operation. Others followed over the years; CDA staff, employees of federal departments and private occupants. Some flats, officials say, were sublet. The available public record shows no authority for such rentals. The rent, unlike the handover, arrived on time.
The emergencies passed. The occupation renewed itself. Islamabad had rediscovered its most durable building material; temporary necessity. Occupation had entered through different doors; emergency shelter, alleged force, departmental convenience and private rent. Those histories are not legally or morally identical. They merely become easier to evict when printed under one heading.
The litigation record cited in later proceedings reaches back to an order dated 13 April 2011. On 13 February 2023, the Islamabad High Court ruled against the forcible occupation and directed the Interior Secretary and the police chief to register criminal cases against police officials found to have occupied flats by force, initiate departmental action and report compliance within one month. Subsequent appeals before the Supreme Court were dismissed.
The order survived appeal. Compliance did not.
An official Senate reply later said directions and reminders had been issued, but disclosed no FIR numbers, departmental findings or compliance report. Three years after the High Court’s direction, most of the flats still occupied were reportedly held by police personnel. The courts had spoken. The executive had not produced the receipts.
Then enforcement found the twenty six doors it could open, those of flats occupied by employees on CDA’s own payroll. After written orders and a seven day notice, possession was recovered. This is known as equal enforcement, beginning with the equal who cannot refuse.
By then, the building had acquired its third official future. First, it was intended for transfer to the housing ministry for onward allotment to government employees. As far back as 2016, Estate Office records reportedly placed more than twenty thousand federal employees on Islamabad’s general accommodation waiting list. In 2024, the government told the Senate that CDA wanted the flats returned for its own employees, who had been waiting for years. In 2026, the reported destination is renovation and open market auction, with expected proceeds of more than eight billion rupees.
The waiting list did not lose its place. It lost the building.
The public purpose will thus be restored by selling the flats to whoever can afford the bid. This is called housing reform, with the housing removed.
By Thursday evening, the Authority had twenty six flats, one hundred and seventy four still occupied and one handover missing since 2003.
The new locks went in quickly. The old failure retained possession.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
