On a cold day in January, a hundred and fifty armed policemen descended on Taunsa Barrage near Kot Addu with two bulldozers to raze a settlement spread over 47 kanal of government land. Many of the homes belonged to the famous boatpeople of the River Indus, the Mohanas. As they also go by the name Shaikh, their settlement, Basti Shaikhan, was marked on the official map for demolition. Also on the map, in the corner, was a box that said: proposed for Circuit House.
The operation was carried out by the new Punjab Enforcement and Regulatory Authority (Pera) which was assisted by Deputy Commissioner Bilal Saleem. But the people who have lived there for generations, challenge the notion that they are squatters. And even though Pera’s Director-General for Monitoring and Implementation, Ahmed Zaheer, says they issue encroachers a digital Emergency Prohibition Order, activist Fazl-e-Rab maintains the basti had no idea the bulldozers were coming.
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