Authority | Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Deve­lopment Authority (CDA) has decided to stop operations against informal settlements to retrieve state land in Islamabad after the hue and cry over the prime minister’s decision to halt action against the ‘One Constitution’ skyscraper. After a court order, the CDA and police had arrived outside the twin towers on Constitution Avenue to vacate the building, but the operation was stopped due to the intervention of PM Shehbaz Sharif, who formed a committee to resolve the matter after listening to the residents. The decision, however, caused an uproar on social media, with the CDA and the interior ministry attracting flak for their operations in the capital to retrieve state land in working-class neighbourhoods of Bari Imam and Saidpur. Against this backdrop, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told an interior ministry officer there was no justification for carrying out operations to retrieve state land until the One Constitution issue was settled, sources in the CDA told Dawn. They said th...