Crackdown launched against MNA’s supporters’ businesses in Jamshoro

MNA Asad Sikandar is opposing govt-supported land acquisition by real estate developer in the area

HYDERABAD: As a dispute, reportedly over land acquisition by a real estate developer in Jamshoro's mountainous region keeps fuelling the Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) internecine war of attrition, the effects have begun to be felt by the district's local bodies.

Real estate businesses have also plunged as the Sindh Building Control Authority and Sehwan Development Authority have launched a crackdown against housing schemes known to be owned by supporters of the MNA on one side of the dispute.

The problems cropped up after the Sindh government and an influential tribal leader and PPP MNA Malik Asad Sikandar locked horns over the reported land purchase by the developer. On Saturday, protesters representing different political, nationalist and religious parties staged a demonstration against Jamshoro Municipal Committee Chairman Faisal Pathan, who belongs to the provincial government's camp.



"All 10 wards of the town committee persistently suffer from poor water supply, drainage, garbage heaps and broken roads," alleged Moulana Anwar Buledi, a local representative of a religious party. "But the chairman [Pathan] is busy embezzling the public funds," he accused.

The protesters bemoaned the fact that Jamshoro is a rapidly expanding education city and is home to three of the largest public sector universities in the province but poor local governance remains an impediment to development.

Separately, the sale and purchase of plots and constructed units in around 20 housing schemes in Jamshoro have plummeted in the wake of the Sindh Building Control Authority's demolition drive. According to MPA Faqir Dad Khoso, who is an associate of Sikandar, the Sindh Building Control Authority and Sehwan Development Agency are victimising residential colonies of builders who are considered supporter of the MNA.



Sikandar's camp earlier alleged that the provincial government was detaching four dehs -administrative revenue units - from Jamshoro and adding them to Karachi’s Malir in order to facilitate a builder. They later claimed that the same builder, assisted by the Malir police, tried to forcefully occupy a village in Malir that is inhabited by Sikandar's supporters.

The Jamshoro deputy commissioner, Mutassam Abbassi, clarified that the provincial government has no plan of separating the four dehs from the district. Commenting on the land acquisition by the builder in Jamshoro’s Mool deh, local MPA Dr Sikandar Shoro said he is unaware of any suhc development.