Land grab?: Eight arrested for demolishing graves

Complainant claims suspects want to grab graveyard land in Chak 206-GB

FAISALABAD:

Police arrested eight suspects for allegedly demolishing graves in Chak 206-GB on Thursday. A case has been registered against 47 others.

Aashiq, the complainant, told Mureedwala police that over 500 graves, including the graves of his family members, were demolished by 55 people, headed by Arshad, who belonged to a religious community.

“Two influential men, Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Wasif, are also supporting the people who have been demolishing the graves,” he said.

Aashiq claimed that the accused wanted to grab graveyard land and build houses there.

Mureedwala Station House Officer (SHO) Muhammad Usman Lashari told The Express Tribune that police had registered a case under sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) against 55 suspects, including 35 nominated and 20 unidentified suspects.

“Police teams conducted raids and arrested Tariq, Waris, Nazeer, Mushtaq, Arshad, Nazeer, Haneef and Fareed. We are still searching for the remaining suspects,” he said.

Tariq, who is in police custody, told The Express Tribune that the land belonged to their community. “Some of the villagers had forcibly occupied our land and buried their dead after declaring it a graveyard,” he said.

“When we asked them to remove the graves, they refused to do so. We had to do this to get back our land,” he said.

Sub Inspector Muhammad Yar, the investigation officer in the case, told The Express Tribune that members of both communities had claimed that the land of the graveyard belonged to them. “We are trying to ascertain their claims,” he said. He said the the case would be thoroughly investigated before action was taken.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2014.