ISLAMABAD - The senior officers, including armed forces personnel, of a highly sensitive organisation have written a letter to the Chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA) for the removal of a couple of hostels, being housed by students from tribal areas, due to security concerns from a residential locality they are residing in.
The serving officers of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) residing in street 31 of Sector I-8/2 through their joint letter to Chairman CDA have expressed their serious concerns over the presence of tribal area students and their guests at two consecutive houses being used as boys’ hostels in the same street.
In their letter, available with TheNation, the residents have also stated that after the establishment of these two hostels, the incidents of robberies and dacoities have increased alarmingly not only in the aforementioned street but also the adjoining localities. To validate their accusations, the residents along with the letter have also submitted copies of some recently registered First Information Reports (FIRs) with the concerned police station of crimes including robberies, mobile and purse snatching occurred in their locality.
As per letter, the owners of House No. 253 and 252-B, located in street 31 of Sector I-8/2, have continuously been abusing the land use norms of CDA, as they were running hostel business at residential units.
“The presence of long-bearded young men with intimidating smiles on their faces, frightens our children and hinder the free movement of the women,” said a serving Colonel, wishing not to be named.
Almost all the residents of the street serve security sensitive organisations, he said, adding their security is at stake under such circumstances where not only one or two but several dozen tribal area people rooming freely around.
A Deputy Chief Engineer of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, who is also co-signatory of the letter, said at first they tolerated because students living in these hostels were mostly hailing from Punjab, but later these hostels were given on contract to some tribal area person. “Now the situation is that the hostels, having capacity to accommodate 90-100 persons, are flooded with tribal area students, which is alarming,” he said. He said tribal boys continue to wander around in the street and remain standing in front of our houses. “Their motorcycles and cars along with those of their visitors block the street, thus seriously compromising the privacy of area residents.”
The officer said that they had written a joint letter to Chairman CDA some three months ago but he did not take any notice of the grave situation. He said the street residents have recently felt presence of some mysterious people in these hostels.
The letter bore signatures of some 14 top-ranked officers of Atomic Energy Commission, and Pakistan Science Foundation.
According to CDA record, some 185 residential units across the federal capital are being used as boys and girls hostels. While the recent scale, though not based on proper survey, of non-conforming use of residential units has been reached up to 1200.
While talking to TheNation, CDA Spokesperson Ramzan Sajid said the Authority has recently kicked off a drive aiming to seal residential units being used for commercial activities. He said during past two week, the enforcement directorate of the Authority had sealed some seven houses in F-Series Sector and six agro-farms in Orchard Scheme, Benazir Bhutto Road found for nonconforming use.
However, about the aforementioned hostels issue, he said, it would be brought to the notice of concerned quarters.