KARACHI: A road project promising to bring relief to the city’s traffic problems has become the centre of a tense confrontation, with a clash between Pakistan Railways (PR) police and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) City Wardens, threatening to derail construction just weeks before its scheduled completion.
It began with an objection over alleged “unauthorised construction” on the railway land. The dispute soon escalated into a physical scuffle, with the railway police taking the chief of KMC City Wardens to a police station.
The controversy centres on the dual carriageway linking Natha Khan Bridge with Pehlwan Goth and Habib University, running parallel to Chakor Nullah. The road is intended to provide an alternative route for commuters travelling through Gulistan-i-Jauhar and adjoining areas.
Valued at around Rs780 million, the project is expected to ease pressure on Sharea Faisal, Rashid Minhas Road, Dalmia Road and Gulistan-i-Jauhar.
Railway police claim ownership of land where municipal authorities are constructing dual carriageway
With Oct 30 project completion deadline looming, the railway police’s objection over land ownership and permissions has raised questions about why the issue surfaced at such a critical stage.
The confrontation also threatens to acquire a wider political dimension, with an already strained relationship between the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led federal government and the Pakistan Peoples Party, which governs Sindh and Karachi’s municipal administration.
The railways, a federal government enterprise, maintained that the road project encroaches on land belonging to the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) and that the construction on its land was without authorisation.
The KMC officials said railways never raised the objection before.
The incident unfolded on Sunday afternoon when the railways police officials intervened at the construction site and stopped the work, prompting the chief of KMC City Wardens to arrive with their contingent.
The two sides initially engaged in a heated exchange over the construction, which soon escalated into a physical scuffle. The KMC alleged that the railways police personnel severely beat City Wardens Director Saim Imran before taking him to a Pakistan Railways police station.
“The land where the road was being constructed belonged to the KCR and that the dispute arose over construction activity on the railways land,” a PR official said.
He said railway authorities were currently collecting information about the incident and would determine the next course of action in accordance with the law once all relevant details had been gathered. The KMC, meanwhile, expressed strong resentment, questioning why the PR had raised objections so late, putting a multi-million-rupee public welfare project at risk just weeks before its completion.
The KMC spokesman rejected the PR’s claim and said that the municipal body had fulfilled all legal requirements before launching the project more than two months ago.
“This is not correct,” he said responding to the railways’ claim over land ownership.
“This is a major project in terms of benefits it will bring to the people and any move to undermine its potential or put it at risk would be detrimental to the interests of Karachi’s residents.”
He said senior KMC officials were in contact with the railways authorities and expressed the hope that the matter would be resolved soon.
Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2026