ISLAMABAD-At the time when city managers are carrying out a citywide anti-encroachment operation on the direction of the apex court, they are once again reluctant to retrieve state land worth billions of rupees illegally occupied by powerful people.
There are several influential land grabbers using state land adjacent to their houses as their lawns from last many years without any legal justification but the city manager have never bothered to question them due to their influential positions.
With the help of official documents and a subsequent survey conducted by this scribe, it was learnt that hundreds of people across the city are using state land and have converted the same into a part of their houses and in some cases constructed structures as well. As for instance, a piece of land is under ‘exclusive’ use of Javed Ashraf, the younger brother of former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in Sector F-10/1. Moreover, Aziz Ahmad Bilour, the younger brother of former Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, PPP Senator Islamuddin Sheikh, Faisal Butt, a close aide of Asif Ali Zardari, and former National Assembly speaker Gohar Ayub have also occupied state land in sectors F-6/3, F-10/2, F-8/2 and F-8/1, respectively. Islamabad Police Assistant Inspector General Waqar Ahmed Chohan, former Pakistan Sports Board director Imtiaz Ahmed Vohra, former chairman KP Public Service Commission Attaullah Khan and Seema Hafeez, an economist at the United Nations, have also encroached upon several acres of state land in sectors G-6/3, I-8/4, F-10/3 and F-8/3, respectively. Former federal secretary Shahid Rafi has also allegedly encroached upon a huge piece of land in the name of a person, Afzal Wali in Sector F-7/3. Similarly, Amer Faruque, chief executive officer of Cherat Packaging, commonly known as Cherat Cement, has encroached a piece of land in Sector F-10/1. Besides politicians, bureaucrats and traders, some former military officers are also using state land without any legitimate right, which include Lt Gen (R) Waseem Ahmed Ashraf in F-10/3, Major General (R) Waheed Arshad in F-6/4 and a building owned by Lt Col (R) Ihsanul Haq in F-7/2, where the Frobel’s International School is housed currently. In addition to the aforementioned top guns, several high ups of CDA, including Deputy Director Finance Miskeen Shah Kazmi, CDA Hospital Executive Director Dr Fayyaz Lodhi, Street Lights Director Roshan Jonejo, Health Director Dr Arshad Mehmood and former CDA tehsildar Raja Zahid are also encroachers of public land mainly in Sector I-8.
In most of the cases, influential citizens have encroached upon the state lands without seeking prior permission from the Capital Development Authority (CDA). However, some of them were allowed by the civic body under certain terms and conditions under the umbrella of a tainted beautification policy.
But, in its meeting held on April 28, 2016, the CDA Board decided to revoke all such permissions, citing rules violation in most of the cases. The board declared that all such people had in fact encroached upon precious land; therefore, it cancelled the permissions through insertion of a public notice in leading national dailies on June 15, 2016. A senior officer of the civic body explained that at present, all such cases stand absolutely illegal and meant as adverse possession on state land while these people can be called land grabbers.
He said that without intervention by Supreme Court, these pieces of state land could not be retrieved because the people involved were of high profiles. When questioned in this regard, the Director Public Relations Syed Safdar Shah said that a step wise anti-encroachments operation was underway and currently they were removing encroachments from main roads and commercial centres. “We will defiantly move towards these encroachments once tackled with the encroachments on main roads”, he added.