‘Builder mafia’ trying to take over Karachi’s oldest college: Director colleges

KARACHI: Mohammad Mashooque, Director Colleges, Karachi region on Saturday said that a land grabbing mafia is behind attempts to take over Aisha Bawany College located at Shara-e-Faisal, the building of which has been sealed by the college’s trustees.

The trust board had closed off the college building, leaving the education of over 3,000 students in limbo.

Aisha Bawany College is among the country’s oldest colleges that were nationalised by the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government. Most of the colleges were returned back to their trustees after Bhutto’s tenure, leading to a tussle between alleged trustees of some colleges and the government over who owns the property.

The trust board of the college had approached a city court over the matter of ownership, which ruled in its favour. The Sindh High Court, however, on the petition of college administration today issued a stay order on the sealing of the building. The petition was filed by the Advocate General Sindh’s office.

According to Geo News, despite the SHC orders, the trust board’s employees reached at the college and proceeded to knock down the building.

Mohammad Mashooque told Geo News that it is, in fact, the land grabbing mafia “in the business of constructing marriage halls and high-rise buildings,” which is trying to take over the college building.

“The original trustees of the college are no longer alive, it is the builder mafia,” he said, adding that the land is a government property.

Mashooque said that the city court and the Sindh High Court had ruled in favour of the trust regarding the ownership, adding that a petition challenging SHC decision has been filed in the Supreme Court. “We are fighting a legal fight,” he said.

Mashooque alleged that the “mafia” wants to take over the building and build a high-rise building in place of it.