Knocking down walls

Salman Uqali is a resident of Maqli, Thatta. The housing community he lives in is located in the better part of the city. One disturbing trend that Salman noticed though was his neighbour’s practice of encroaching on public land. Soon this practice of building illegal encroachments spread throughout the neighbourhood; the city authorities too did not take much notice of this illegal activity.

The two lane road of Salman’s street was soon turned into a one lane road because of structures raised on one side of it. These included extensions to drive ways, and in some cases boundary walls of houses too covered part of the road.

Not only did this cause inconvenience for motorists and pedestrians it was dangerous as well. Another effect of the encroachments was that they drove down property prices of the housing community.

It was apparent to Salman that this illegal activity had to be stopped – starting with this own house. Salman’s house’s boundaries to extended over into the city’s land but he convinced his family to remove the illegal construction.

Deciding to have all illegal encroachments removed from his neighbourhood Salman began researching Thatta’s zoning laws and paid regular visits to offices of the local authorities.
Because of Salman’s persistence the illegal encroachments were soon removed from his neighbourhood and the road passing through his street is being repaired and will once again have two lanes.