JIT unable to identify who killed Perveen Rehman

Members of OPP who tried to continue her work started receiving threats, says report

ISLAMABAD: A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has failed to identify the murderer of Orangi Pilot Project Director Perveen Rehman.

The JIT strongly stated that land mafia's elements were the clearest beneficiaries of Perveen Rehman's murder. The JIT comprising all federal and provincial agencies has submitted a final report in the apex court regarding Ms Rehman, who was assassinated in Karachi on March 13, 2013.

"In the opinion of the JIT members, the root cause of Ms Rehman's murder had to lie with her efforts to make it more difficult to grab the land …in the case of Ms. Rehman's murder, the clearest beneficiaries were land mafias", says the report.



It is also stated that OPP's work of documenting the Goths to attain their land rights stopped almost immediately. Some efforts were made to continue Rehman's work but several other members of the OPP  started receiving constant threats and in at least one incident, a cracker or generator was thrown at a senior member of the OPP's staff. The result was that the OPP suspended its operations working with Goths and those operations have not been reopened till date.

"With the suspension of the OPP's work, the entire process of regularising and recognising the goths that Ms. Rehman had initiated came to a standstill…it was the land mafia…that became the direct beneficiaries of the murder of Parveen Rehman", says the report.

However, the JIT said that identifying the motive does not necessarily make it any easier to pinpoint the connection between those who pulled the trigger and those who benefited. Moreover, the lapse of time between the murder and when the investigation began was so long that it has become virtually impossible to gather evidence that would enable the investigation team to properly inquire into any connections between the arrested accused individuals and wider mafia organizations.

"What can be said about these individuals is that they exactly fit the bill for the types of characters who were involved and used as foot soldiers by the land mafia. Raheem Swati and his associates were basically small time gangsters, who, when it suited their purpose, took political cover by declaring themselves local members of the ANP in Orangi...may well have had a localized dispute with the OPP over the establishment of a Karate club…since they were neighbours of the OPP, logistically involving them in any plan to kill Parveen Rehman would have made perfect sense as they knew the locality," says the report.

The report also states that Ms Rehman's connections with some members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) facilitated the process of government recognition of Goths. The recognition of such a large number of goths and, by implication, their land rights over significant and lucrative areas of land on the northern and eastern outskirts of Karachi, represented a clear and present danger to the land mafia of the city.

The development of the Northern Bypass was a route for the transport of all sorts of valuable cargo upcountry, including NATO supplies to Afghanistan, which naturally further increased the value of the land and the desperation of individuals to gain control of that land. According to OPP estimates, the number of goths would likely double and even treble from the 1,182 that had been identified by 2012.

The report says that the threat and actions of the land mafia must also be placed in the context of the law and order and political situation in Karachi at the time.  The period 2006-12, during which Ms Rehman began her work against land grabbing, was perhaps one of the most lawless periods of Karachi's history.

The city's ethnic conflict, between Pashtun and Mohajir, was at its peak, with the cadres of both the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Awami National Party (ANP) heavily involved in various criminal activities, especially land grabbing. Moreover, the Taliban had also emerged as a potent militant force in the city.

All of these groups had their involvement in illegal land grabbing activities going on at the outskirts of the city. Several of the JIT members testified that from their experience that whatever their stated political differences were in this period, all three groups worked hand in glove, often supporting each other's activities in land grabbing.

Big developers in the city would associate themselves with these groups using the militant wings of these groups as their 'muscle' in order to forcibly seize land.

Members of the JIT also testified that in their experience murders that were declared as politically motivated or acts of terrorism were in fact based on land disputes that were made to look like political killings to cover up the real facts.

The state apparatus in the shape of the land revenue administration or the police was either too weak or complicit in the face of the great Karachi land grab. It was not just the street level operatives of these groups that were the beneficiaries of this land grabbing bonanza. The allegations of illegal land grabbing have been placed on every single major project that cropped up on the outskirts of the city. The report also says that the politically influential individuals benefited by misusing the Goth Abad scheme.

It is also stated that recent media reports claimed that high profile individuals like former Sindh governor Ishrat-ul-Ibad and former Malir Development Authority chairman Ameerzada Kohati, as well as prominent builders and developers like Chaudhry Tanveer and even Malik Riaz allegedly benefited from the misuse of these schemes.



The foot soldiers for these high profile beneficiaries were the local land grabbers like Qadeer Shah, Aalim, Abid Arai, and Abdul Wasey who took cover in MQM and ANP to protect their illegal business.

Meanwhile, Raheel Kamran Sheikh counsel for petitioner sought time to file a reply over the JIT's report. The three judge bench headed by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed has adjourned the hearing until May 21.