LAHORE - Evacuee Trust Property Board Chairman Siddique-ul-Farooq Tuesday said that the official procedure was being expedited to decide the case of historic Lal Haveli.
The PML-N leader made it clear that either the occupant will have to pay the pending rent to his department or he will have to vacate the property.
“Being chairman (of the EPTB), I can ask the Administrator to expedite the process. If the Lal Haveli case is not regularized, the occupant will be expelled from the property. And in case, the Administrator regularizes the case, the occupant will have to pay the rent of last 15 years,” Farooq told reporters while addressing a news conference in Lahore yesterday. The Evacuee Trust Property Board had issued a notice to Awami Muslim League President Sheikh Rashid Ahmed in October, forcing him to vacate the Lal Haveli within 15 days.
According to Siddique-ul-Farooq the notice was issued on land illegally occupied by the former federal minister, Sheikh Rashid next to his Lal Haveli. He said that seven units adjacent to Lal Haveli had been leased to seven different tenants but Sheikh Rashid is the space as part of Lal Haveli. Officials said that a 140 square feet room is being used as Lal Haveli’s kitchen, and an area measuring 9 metres and 84 square feet is being used to house the AML president’s security guards, even though the ETPB gave this property to a woman, Wilayat Jan. Earlier, the ETPB Chairman had warned that he would stage a sit-in in front of Lal Haveli if Sheikh Rashid does not vacate the property of the Board.
Lal Haveli, an old building in Rawalpindi’s downtown, Bohar Bazaar, serves as the Sheikh Rashid’s political office. The building belonged to a Hindu woman prior to partition, and was converted into a political hub in 1980 after Sheikh Rashid entered parliamentary politics. Sheikh Rashid says he would not surrender to the government’s pressure since he had purchased the land. The senior politician also blamed authorities for using such tactics against him for political point scoring.