Thousands of people, protesting a mega housing project in the port city of Karachi in Pakistan, torched several vehicles, shops, and offices, forcing police and paramilitary forces to fire teargas shells and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. 

Several people, totaling around 8000-1000, came from distant cities in the province and the country, to join the protest  on Sunday  in Bahria Town Karachi, a gated suburb, for what they call opposing the “colonization of Sindh by wealthy people and businessmen.”

Locals, under the banner of the Sindh Action Committee (SAC), first staged a sit-in in front of the main gate of a mega house project, according to a report in Dawn. 

Locals of the province, who are ethnic Sindhis, alleged that mega housing projects in the area are being planned to snatch their ancestral lands. 

The province’s M-9 highway, which connects Karachi to Hyderabad, was also blocked briefly by the protestors. Later, when the scuffle broke out between police and protesters, the latter barged into the BTK housing society and set several vehicles, shops, including two franchises of international fast food firms, and offices on fire. 

A senior police officer in charge of the area, speaking to Dawn, said, “no casualty took place while the police managed to detain around 80-90 persons and FIRs would be registered against them.” 

However, the police officer revealed that despite the repeated calls by senior officials of police to the government to engage protesters politically, no one from the provincial government took any initiative to avoid the situation. 

(SAM)