ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
In Pakistan's capital city, Islamabad, land has always been about power. In recent months, local authorities have been bulldozing entire communities to clear the way for a more modern vision of the city. That's destroying working-class neighborhoods and threatening a treasured ancient religious site. NPR's Diaa Hadid brings us this story from Islamabad.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Singing in non-English language).
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: For more than 300 years, worshippers have flocked to the green-doomed shrine of a beloved Sufi saint, Bari Imam...
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Singing in non-English language).
WIRASAT ALY: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: ...Like Wirasat Aly, whose family for generations have sought the saint's blessings by lighting lamps at his shrine every evening. But on a recent day, Aly was salvaging bricks from his razed home...
(SOUNDBITE OF BRICKS BEING THROWN)
HADID: ...Tosses the good ones in a pile. A truck full will get him about $5.
ALY: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: It's how Aly's scraping together $70 to pay rent to shelter his extended family.
That sounds really heartbreaking to sell the remains of your own house.
ALY: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: "I have to do it for the children." He's got eight in his care.
ALY: (Speaking Urdu).
HADID: All around Aly...
It looks like a bomb hit, and it's because bulldozers that belong to the Islamabad authorities came here in December and April and just plowed through hundreds and hundreds of homes here, leaving thousands of residents displaced and homeless.
In an outdoor cafe, housing rights activist Aasim Sajjad Akhtar tells us some 50,000 people lost their homes in those unprecedented demolition drives.
AASIM SAJJAD AKHTAR: I have never seen the intensity that I've seen in the last six months.
HADID: Residents say they believe this demolition drive took place because one of Pakistan's most powerful men indicated his interest in developing the area.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MOHSEN NAQVI: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: That's the interior minister, Mohsen Naqvi. He is widely considered close to the chief of the army, which is Pakistan's most powerful institution. And in April, Naqvi said he had a vision of converting the razed areas into a futuristic hybrid of Shanghai and Manhattan.
But an official at the Capital Development Authority, which governs Islamabad, said the homes were razed because they were illegally built. She said other residents lived on land that was seized by authorities in the '60s, when Islamabad was created as the capital city. She says residents were compensated then and would not be compensated again.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Singing in non-English language).
HADID: Some neighborhoods still stand for now. She says they're next. One man whose home is threatened with demolition is Atif Mehmood. He's 30, has three kids, shares his house with his sister. He's watching worshippers squeeze through his alleyway, the processions heading to the Sufi shrine of Bari Imam.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Singing in non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: He introduces us to his niece, Noor Fatima. She's 11, has severe cerebral palsy, is wheelchair-bound. Mehmood strokes her hair.
ATIF MEHMOOD: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: He says they've got nowhere to go if their home is torn down. He says, "it's not the fault of these children."
MEHMOOD: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: The family says they're praying for a reprieve, but they don't expect the swift mercy given to residents of a luxury high-rise called One Constitution Avenue. It also overlooks the Bari Imam shrine. It was built illegally. And after years of litigation, on May 1 this year, police ordered its wealthy residents to evacuate. But after just a day, the prime minister himself ordered authorities to leave the building alone.
In the Bari Imam area, Saida Tanvir was also given a reprieve of sorts. We meet Tanvir in her home. It sticks out amid the rubble because the outer walls are still standing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE RUNNING)
SAIDA TANVIR: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: She says authorities let her stay a little longer after her 16-year-old son died. He was trying to block a bulldozer from crushing their roadside grocery store. She says the police pushed her son, Azeem Ahmed, hard. He hit his head on rocks and died days later.
TANVIR: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: Tanvir says she's used the last of her money to bury her son. She gestures towards the Bari Imam shrine where volunteers run a cafeteria that serves free food for pilgrims and the poor. She says, "I never once begged, but now we ask for the saint's charity." Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Bari Imam, Islamabad.
(SOUNDBITE OF WALE SONG, "BLANCO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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