Nobody broke into the hills. Appetite had complete documentation.
Urban Bystander
The law can reverse itself. A hill cannot.
On Pir Sohawa, the ground where Monal, La Montana, Gloria Jean’s and other establishments stood is planned as a public viewpoint. Native trees and shrubs have been assigned the old terraces. Beneath them, the concrete is waiting for the next hearing.
The old books call him Ouroboros. Islamabad knows him as the serpent. In 2006, he appeared at CDA’s accounts office carrying an agreement and a healthy appetite. Under “purpose of visit” he wrote hunger. The clerk corrected it to tourism, measured the land, rent and term, and sent the file upstairs. There was no column for appetite, so the application was treated as complete.
CDA granted Monal a fifteen year agreement inside the national park. Other public bodies later claimed the same land and litigated over rent and possession. The Supreme Court ordered the restaurants removed in 2024. This July, the Federal Constitutional Court set aside material parts of the ruling and returned questions of ownership and entitlement to the civil court. It neither restored the agreement nor authorised reconstruction.
The law changed direction. The hill kept the concrete.
The serpent is not Monal, La Montana, Gloria Jean’s or any single business. They are scales. He grows wherever private appetite brings money, public authority supplies land and paperwork, and regulation waits until occupation has become an investment, a livelihood and an accomplished fact.
The old serpent ate his own tail. Ours obtained approval for the remaining body.
Monal said more than 700 employees faced unemployment. Footage showed one worker collapsing as termination letters were handed out. Nearly 1,500 citizens later petitioned against renewed commercial activity. Islamabad had produced two legitimate claims and no transition between them. Citizens wanted the park to remain a park; workers paid for an arrangement they had not made.
The serpent had never depended on one ridge. Along Murree Road, he acquired an entire town.
Murree was once where the plains went to breathe. Eventually, breathing required parking. The plains built an expressway, booked every room and forgot to check out. Between 1998 and 2010, the built area rose almost twelve percentage points while dense natural forest fell just over twelve. New rooms advertised the forest as it retreated behind them.
Over two days in January 2022, 157,665 vehicles entered Murree. Twenty three people died in stranded cars. They had gone up to see the snow.
In Ayubia, the serpent found Moto Tunnel, built in 1891, buried beneath soil and rubbish, and restored in 2020 for ecotourism. GDA has now permitted a hotel to rise above it, though construction has not begun. First the authority rescued the tunnel so visitors could find it. Then it approved hospitality on its roof. The serpent had not broken ground. His paperwork had.
When a court later ordered the province to restore Galiyat’s forest boundaries, the forest was advised to bring proof of permanent address.
At Rawal Lake, the serpent found parking. Two decades of satellite imagery show parts of its green edge giving way to intensive human use. The lake received roads, lights, crowds and food, then waited for five sewage treatment plants promised since 2012. The plants remained under process.
The sewage arrived without a reservation.
In January 2026, the government told the National Assembly that 29,115 trees had been removed. It said replacement planting exceeded removals. WWF separately documented vegetation losses linked to infrastructure.
In the official season, replacement forests grow quickly. Before the trucks carrying mature trunks had left, the new canopy had appeared in a press release.
The serpent had never needed the whole forest. A ridge, a road, a lakefront and enough parking were sufficient. He was an incremental eater and therefore qualified as development.
An interdepartmental committee came to measure him. It inspected the tail, referred the stomach to Finance and left the appetite for phase two.
The serpent ate the minutes.
An Islamabad family should not need a restaurant booking to borrow the city’s own view. A shuttle, a trail, drinking water and a bench are access. A private dining room is a tenancy. Tourism is the word that lets appetite enter without appearing hungry.
On Pir Sohawa the serpent carried official paperwork. In Murree he arrived in 157,665 vehicles. In Ayubia he booked the tunnel’s roof. At Rawal Lake he found parking.
At no point was he asked what he intended to eat.
By then he had eaten the silence that sold the rooms, the forest that brought visitors, the water that made the view worth reaching and, finally, the reason anybody came. The file continued to describe him as facilitating access.
The hills did not eat themselves.
Greed ordered the meal. The guardians served it.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
