The Pakistani government has increasingly used a colonial-era law to forcibly evict thousands of low-income residents, shop owners, and street vendors to facilitate public and private development projects across the country in violation of international human rights law and standards. 

In the vast majority of mass eviction cases that Human Rights Watch documented, the authorities failed to provide adequate consultation, notice, compensation, assistance with resettlement, and a means of redress. During many evictions the police used abusive and unnecessary or excessive force to forcibly remove tenants from their housing and property, including beatings, arbitrary arrests, and destruction of personal property.  

Report by Human Rights Watch