Sindh Chief Minister’s name is being called out loud in the hallways of the Supreme Court. With a tenacity just as fierce, mechanical claws working under the direct blessings of his chief organ–Karachi Metropolitan Corporation–are swerving at petty whims. The hapless victims in both instances remain the unfortunate living in the crosshairs of the mighty. Heart-wrenching videos of people watching their homes turn into rubble are making rounds on social media. The plight of those being forced to live under the sky could not be encapsulated better than the visual of angst-ridden Shahid Chacha slumping helplessly against the wall. Then again, there are stories of people not being allowed the basic decency of waving their final goodbyes. Reports of KMC employees enticing the downtrodden with relief in exchange for sexual favours simply takes the icing. Children holding placards and their parents waving lease documents–some as old as the country itself–are all fighting a battle they are destined to lose. For this is Karachi where you are only an encroacher if you are poor and vulnerable. Never mind the blockage right at the mouth of the drain or the obstructions along the way for they happen to fall in posh areas. Orangi and Gujjar nullahs have been in the limelight for quite some time. The tragedy first unfurled when crisscrossed storm drains began swamping the city of light; taking away countless lives along the way. Amid uproar on government doing precious little and countless tos and fros of Whose Fault is it Anyway, Karachi launched the drive to push away the oft-targeted class. Those with social capital were able to turn the bulldozers away. Meanwhile, Mr Wahab Murtaza cannot stop raving about an end to the politics of segregation. Apparently, fleets of shining buses are expected to take care of all of Karachi’s predicaments. If not that, the raving game of pass the parcel (hint hint, Federal Minister Asad Umar) would work wonders for optics. You give up your house–that you probably paid with a lifetime of savings–for a teeny-tiny compensation that you might get. Only, if luck is on your side and Pakistan’s top court can turn the screws on CM House. Those holding out any hopes would be better off talking to the corporations’ victims sitting on the tracks of the Karachi Circular Railway. Oh, and by the way, that property you call your house is not yours anyway because the very KMC that issued you the lease has now bulled its way through your treetop. The twisted ways in which irony works never get old in Pakistan! *