(ACN): THE Punjab government in Pakistan stands accused of “brutal injustice” for sending bulldozers into a Church-owned site and demolishing homes for poor, elderly and homeless people, a school for poor girls and a church.
Poverty-stricken families living on the two-acre site in Lahore were woken at 6.30am on January 10 and were asked to evacuate their homes.
All the buildings on the site were destroyed including a small church and at least seven houses – which still had the occupants’ belongings inside.
With nowhere to go, a number of families and people working in the school camped out overnight on the demolished site, in Allama Iqbal Road, in Lahore’s Garhi Shahu district, and the following morning, a protest march was held.
Stating the Church had proof of ownership of the site dating back to 1887, Catholic Bishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore condemned the state government of Punjab, accusing it of “carrying out a criminal act of land-grabbing”.
He said he had summoned priests of the diocese to a crisis meeting to prepare a High Court writ to reclaim the site.
Condemning the demolition job, Bishop Shaw said: “What the state government of Punjab has done is a very, very brutal act of injustice.”
“How can they do such a thing, just to come in, wreck a charitable institution and ruin the lives of people living there? They do not listen to anybody.
“This is a criminal act of land-grabbing by the government functionaries.”
Warning of further government action to seize Church-owned property, he said: “Everybody is worried now that the state government and especially the ruling party in the Punjab Province [the Muslim League ‘N’] have their eye on our buildings and land.”
Fr Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, National director of the Catholic Church’s National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), said the Church had not received prior warning of the demolition plans.
According to local newspaper reports, local government officials claim the site was declared state land by the authorities in 2007.
