No mercy: Drive launched against encroachments

DCO tells officials not to return seized material to the owners

MULTAN: DCO Nadir Chattha has ordered a crackdown against encroachments in Shujabad and Jalalpur Peerwala, officials said on Wednesday. Special teams have been assigned for the crackdown.

The DCO has instructed the teams not to return material, seized in the operations, to the owners. He has also told them to impose heavy fines on the “big guns running businesses on illegal encroachments”.

A team led Multan City Assistant Commissioner Farooq Dogar was assigned duties in four towns. They tore down encroachments at Haram Gate Chowk, at Delhi Gate, Chungi 9, and on Bosan Road this week. Officials said that the team had razed 10 buildings and had seized dozens of carts during the operation. Dogar told The Express Tribune that they had gotten five cases registered people who had encroached on government-owned land. He said the DCO had accorded the teams special powers to take action against illegal encroachments. “This step has been taken to make the city spacious and beautiful.”

He termed the encroachers “enemies of the society”. More than 60 per cent of the encroachments in the city would be razed within the month and the encroachers would be taken to task, he said. “If we catch anyone encroaching on a single inch of government-owned land or road, we will make sure they end up in prison.” Dogar said they would comb the suburbs of Shujabad and Jalalpur Peerwala in the second phase of the anti-encroachment drive. “The citizens of Multan will soon find the roads and main traffic junctions spacious, beautiful and free of illegal encroachments,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2016.