Human Rights Watch raises concerns over forceful eviction of low-income residents in Pakistan

New York [US], May 29 : The Pakistani administration has been using excessive force and colonial-era laws and policies to evict low-income citizens in the name of its developmental projects, Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated in a report on Tuesday.
The 48-page report titled 'I Escaped with Only My Life:' Abusive Forced Evictions in Pakistan,' stated that authorities have evicted thousands of people without adequate consultation, notice, compensation, resettlement assistance, or means of redress in violation of their basic rights, disproportionately burdening people and households with low incomes, who are often ethnic minorities.
"The Pakistani government urgently needs to reform its colonial-era land laws so that they are equitable, transparent, and in line with Pakistan's international obligations. The authorities should ensure that no one is made homeless due to eviction, compensate the loss of land, and provide for the resettlement of those displaced," said Saroop Ijaz, senior Asia counsel at HRW.
For the report, 36 victims of forced evictions in the cities of Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi, as well as lawyers advocating for the rights of those evicted and urban planners were interviewed and documented. The court decisions and laws governing Pakistan's land tenure system were reviewed.
The report by the HRW claimed that in many cases, the police have used unnecessary or excessive force to remove tenants, including beatings, arbitrary arrests, and destruction of personal property. According to the report, the administration's weightage to the developmental projects having certain functions does not lessen the avoidable harm to those affected or the government's international legal obligations to address those harms.
In many cases, the ones who were evicted by the Pakistani administration had lost their livelihoods and their access to essential public services like education and health. These practices worsen social and economic inequalities, disproportionately burdening people and households with low incomes, and who often are ethnic minorities.
The HRW in its report documented the case of Zakia Bibi from November 7, 2021. A video of Bibi, resident of the Gujjar nullah community in Karachi, had went viral on Facebook. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), acting on a Supreme Court directive, had demolished her home in an anti-encroachment operation.
In the video, Zakia Bibi said, "Why don't they kill us (all at) once?" and speaks about her husband, Shahid, having a heart attack and seeing his house reduced to rubble. The authorities told her that she should not expect a check for compensation for six months. Zakia Bibi said the demolition of the house signified for her the "demolition of her life," and everything she and her husband had collected over a lifetime.
She urged the government to help her family. Zakia Bibi said, "My son earns Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 20,000 (USD 72) a month. He cannot afford to rent a place and we are told not to expect any compensation for the next six months. We are old and unwell. We are sleeping under the open sky. Have a heart.@ Four days later, on November 11, Zakia Bibi died of a heart attack."
Speaking about Zakia Bibi's death, Khurram Ali, convenor of the Karachi Bachao Tehreek, a group advocating for the rights of demolition-affected people, said, "This was not the first death or the last for that matter to happen because of the demolitions. There is an emerging health crisis in the affected communities, directly linked to demolitions. There are multiple heart patients among the affectees of this anti-poor campaign. What will become of them? The government is signing their death sentence with every new demolition."
In another documented incident, Sakina Wali, a 43-year-old domestic worker, stated, "My husband, Ghulam, used to put a stall with samosas outside Empress Market. Last time, when an anti-encroachment drive took place, police seized his cart without any prior notice. We had to literally beg them to return it to us. My husband was abused and humiliated by the staff concerned, and we had to pay them a hefty amount of Rs 20,000 (USD 72) to get our cart back."
Wali said that her husband had a permit to put up the stall, but officials carrying out sweeping "anti-encroachment" drives often do not give those affected the time or the opportunity to establish their legal status, affecting their ability to get compensation for their loss of any property.
The HRW report also mentioned that "Pakistan's colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of 1894 has provided the template for public land acquisition in the country more than a century later. The law permits Pakistani authorities to acquire land for vaguely defined "public purposes," which may include use by public-private partnerships and even private, for-profit companies.
The law and others based on it give the government almost exclusive authority to decide what falls within its scope and to displace people with minimum procedural safeguards that are contrary to international human rights law and standards. According to the report, the government frequently asserts that removing structures that "encroach" on public lands or state property is both necessary and justified. Encroachment is also a crime under several provincial and regional laws, and those convicted face fines or even prison sentences.
In one example, the family of Bashir Husain had been running a small shop in a Karachi market for 70 years and paid timely rent to the local government municipal corporation, as well as utility bills and taxes. But in 2018, the authorities demolished Husain's family shop as part of an anti-encroachment drive. He asked, "How can my shop be an encroachment?"
He further said, "Since the 1950s we have paid rent to the government. How long does it take for something not to be an encroachment? Three generations of my family have run this shop.".
The report mentioned that Human Rights Watch found that the authorities frequently fail to ascertain the land rights of residents beforehand and provide little if any compensation.
In some cases, the police arrest and prosecute those who resist without a lawful basis. Other contributing factors that facilitate abuse include corruption in land acquisition; impunity for police who carry out abusive evictions, and poor land registration mechanisms that make it difficult for victims of forced evictions to prove ownership.