Civic body incurred loss of Rs65b due to non-payment of rent and encroachment. PHOTO: INP/FILE
KARACHI: Law enforcement agencies, in collaboration with the land mafia, have allegedly encroached upon land allotted on the directives of the high court.
A plot of land measuring 1,890 square yards, survey number 596 in Gulshan-e-Iqbal was allotted to Tariq Ahmed Khan by the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) in 1998. The land had been allotted on the directives of the Sindh High Court (SHC) in 1998 but the police illegally obtained possession of the land and established an office on it.
However, in 2012 the SHC directed the police to vacate the land and hand it over to its rightful owner. The police complied with the order and the land has been in the possession of the owner since 2012. Khan constructed a boundary wall on the land.
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Khan told The Express Tribune that uniformed police personnel reached his site and demolished the boundary wall without any prior notice or explanation. "We are looking for a reason behind the demolition of the front wall of the land when police picked up the watchmen from the land and dispatched private security guards, handing over its possession to the land mafia," Khan claimed. When contacted, the security guards of Vital Security Company said that Gulshan-e-Iqbal police deployed them at the land and directed them to restrict entry of 'irrelevant' people.
SHO Gulshan-e-Iqbal Rasheed Alvi said that the land is disputed and therefore, the police picked up the watchmen, but later released them. Action against the landowner was taken on the directives of senior police officials, he said.
"The issue of the land is in court and the land will be handed over to its original owner," Alvi said. However, he declined giving possession of the land to the land mafia.
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"I have bought the land from a man, Abdul Salam," claimed a man identified as Sabir. He said that the land survey number he purchased is 553, owned by Salam.
The documents obtained revealed that KDA's master plan department have duly verified the land as survey number 596. Khan explained that Salam took the power of the land survey number 553, acquired by KDA, and he is trying to capture the land survey number 596, while using the documents of survey number 553.
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