Wedding halls demolition affects over 500 functions – Newspaper – DAWN.COM

KARACHI: More than 500 people who had booked functions at the marriage halls which were demolished by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation during an anti-encroachment operation faced a setback on Saturday when they came to know their programmes have been disrupted.

Some people had booked parties at the wedding halls many months in advance, presuming that the halls had been lawfully functioning for the past few decades.

The hall owners / managers claimed that the Friday demolition was carried out without any prior notice. They claimed they had offered their clients a complete refund of their advance or arrangement of the functions at some alternative venue.

During a visit to Gulshan-i-Iqbal, where three halls had been demolished on Friday, it was noted that even furniture and office equipment of two of them had been taken away by the KMC.

However, the third wedding hall Junagarh Marriage Hall wore a different look. It stood partially demolished. No furniture or other equipment had been removed.

The staff at the hall said the anti-encroachment team immediately stopped the demolition when they were shown some legal documents of the hall. Pervez Zafar Wasti, supervisor at the Junagarh Hall, said the hall was managed by the Junagarh State Muslim Federation and had been functioning for the past three decades.

According to the staff at all the three halls, between 150 and 200 functions, some of them scheduled for December, have been disrupted at each hall owing to the demolition.

He said it was not a commercial facility and the premises were used for the Junagarh community functions. Between Rs15,000 and Rs50,000 was charged for each function, while in some deserving cases even food was also provided free of cost to the community members.

He said the funds thus generated were used for the federation activities and also for holding functions related to the Junagarh State such as Junaragh Day. He said that 10 to 12 functions were held at the hall on a monthly basis. Usually, he added, the hall was booked three to four months in advance. He could not give an exact number but said around 40 to 50 functions would be affected.

He claimed that no notice had been served by the KMC before the demolition.

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Wedding halls demolition affects over 500 functions - Newspaper - DAWN.COM