Islamabad’s civic authority has warned several religious seminaries that their buildings could be sealed if alleged violations of building control rules are not put right within fifteen days, in a widening enforcement drive that has already reached one of the country’s most prominent political residences.
The Capital Development Authority, known as the CDA, has issued notices to the seminaries over what it describes as unauthorised construction and breaches of the capital’s building regulations. The notices set a clear deadline. The administrations must submit approved plans, remove structures identified as unlawful, or face sealing of the premises, fines and, in the most serious cases, cancellation of a property’s allotment.
One notice concerns Madrasa Akhtar-ul-Uloom in Bilal Town, near Korang Nullah in the Khanna Dak area. According to the authority, construction was carried out there without an approved building plan, and the administration must submit the required plans within fifteen days. The warning is stark: if the plans are not produced in time, the building could be sealed. For an institution housing students and teachers, sealing would bring daily teaching and residential life to a halt.
A second set of alleged violations has been identified at House Number 3, Street Number 6, in Sector F-8/3, where the institutions named as Idara Maarif-e-Islamia, Shariah Rabbaniyah and Tafsir-ul-Quran are located. There, the authority says, unauthorised construction has been raised inside the mandatory setbacks and additional structures put up on the rooftop. It has also objected to the building’s use, saying a property meant for residential purposes is being used as a seminary. All violations must be removed within fifteen days or the site faces sealing, fines and cancellation of the allotment.
The seminary notices did not arrive in isolation. Days earlier, enforcement reached the Islamabad residence associated with Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl. On October 30, the CDA’s Directorate of Building Control pasted a warning notice outside the house at Number 7, Street 83, in Sector G-6/4. Addressed to the property’s owner, it listed three alleged violations under the 2020 building control regulations, as amended in 2023: unauthorised construction in the setbacks, a guard post on CDA land, and a generator on CDA land. Some reports also mentioned an additional kitchen as a further violation, although other accounts of the notice did not include it.
The residence notice carries a history going back several years. According to the authority, the owner submitted an affidavit on March 18, 2019, when a no-objection certificate was issued, undertaking to remove the setback violations within three months and to observe all CDA regulations. The authority says that undertaking was never fulfilled, and a previous notice was issued on that same date in 2019. The new notice warns that if the structures are not removed within fifteen days, the authority could seal the building, demolish the unauthorised structures, and begin proceedings to cancel the allotment.
The government has described the action as routine rather than targeted. Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry has said the campaign against illegal construction and encroachments in Islamabad has been under way for more than a year, with the capital’s well-off sectors targeted first. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has said action against encroachments on state land will continue without discrimination, and no institution or individual will be allowed to occupy government land. The message is that the rules apply to householder, seminary and senior politician alike.
That explanation has not settled the argument. Reports noted the notices came just days after Maulana Fazlur Rehman criticised the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz led federal government in strong terms, amid a wider standoff between the government and the opposition party. Supporters of the seminaries and the party are therefore likely to read the timing as political, while the authority insists the notices rest on building records, approved plans and land ownership. The gap matters, because enforcement against religious institutions is always sensitive in Pakistan.
A setback, the key term in these notices, is the compulsory open space left around a building, between the structure and its plot boundary. Those strips allow light and air to reach neighbouring homes, give emergency services room to work, and keep a clear corridor between buildings. When a setback is built over, neighbours lose that protection and the sector’s planned layout begins to break down. The same logic applies to public land: a guard post or generator outside a boundary may feel practical, but that land is meant for roads, green areas and public services.
What happens next depends on the fifteen-day clock. The administrations can submit plans for approval where none exist, remove the structures identified, and bring their buildings’ use into line with their approved purpose. If they do so, the immediate threat of sealing recedes. If they do not, the authority says it will act on its own, with consequences including sealing, demolition, fines and, ultimately, cancellation of an allotment. For a seminary, that last step would be the gravest of all, and all eyes will now be on whether other properties with similar violations receive the same treatment in the same fifteen days.
