islamabad - The officials of Islamabad Capital Territory administration on Thursday demolished several illegal bus terminals at Faizabad.
The action was taken in the light of the directives by Islamabad High Court to remove encroachments from the area. According to the sources, the ICT administration directed the officials of Regional Transport Authority to carry out an operation against the violators. They got heavy machinery from a private party to conduct the operation as the Capital Development Authority’s Enforcement Directorate was not involved in the opening phase of the operation. However, the teams of the Enforcement Directorate joined the operation during later half of the crackdown, according to the sources.
Police in large number was deployed on the spot to avert any untoward situation.
The operation was supervised by Assistant Commissioner Waseem Khan.
The terminals which were razed to ground include Faisal Movers, Islamabad Express, Raja Travel, Frontier Punjab, and Al-Makkah Travels.
The owners of the demolished bus terminals have alleged that a provincial minister whose bus stand was demolished from the area on the orders of a court some time ago was behind the operation. “He [provincial minister] pressurized the ICT administration to take action against his business rivals”, said Raja Shahid Abbasi, owner of Raja Travels.
Talking to the Nation, he complained that the authorities had taken action on his private land which they had nothing to do with. “We were not encroaching upon the state land rather we had established the terminal on private land,” he explained. He further said that owners of the two bus terminals; Al-Makkah and Frontier Punjab had stay orders from a court in their favour despite which the authorities took action against them. A few weeks back, the CDA in a major operation cleared the green belt by removing the bus stands being run by the provincial minister.
