IF truth is the first casualty in war, then the biggest casualty is almost always the poor. This is as true in the warzone itself — Iran and the Gulf countries — as here in Pakistan. The petrol bomb has already wreaked havoc, but what if a poor family forced to deal with what is effectively a cost of living crisis had to deal with their home being demolished?

The story I narrate here is of the federal capital, and one that I have written about on these pages before. The protagonist is the Capital Development Authority and the hybrid regime that oversees it. On the other side are the poor residents of informal settlements, the biggest of which, Muslim Colony near Bari Imam, was razed to the ground in December. The distractions of the Zionist attack on Iran are now providing cover for the CDA to go after others.

The latest targets of the ruling regime are Islamabad’s Christian katchi abadis. It is cruel irony that many whose homes are under threat actually work for the CDA’s sanitation department. What better evidence of the utterly instrumental and brutalising logics of Pakistani statecraft that the workers who clean the capital’s streets, homes and offices........

© Dawn