Illegal parking: IGP’s office accused of encroachment

PHA claims ownership, police disputes it.

LAHORE:

A four-kan al public park in front of the inspector general of police’s (IGP) office on Lower Mall has been encroached upon by the police headquarters (PHQ) officials to park their vehicles.

The land is claimed by the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA), who accuses the PHQ of illegally setting up a parking lot on the park.

The IGP’s office, however, has denied PHA’s claim and said that the park fell under the Lahore Development Authority.

A PHQ officer said that the PHQ employees’ vehicles were parked separately from visitors’ vehicles for security reasons.

He said that the parking lot had to be moved outside the office compound to the ground adjacent to Lady McLagan Government Girls High School considering the threat of a terrorist attack. He said the parking lot was reserved for police officers and employees of the PHQ.

He said that the police had started using the ground as a parking lot after terrorists started targeting police. Roads adjacent to PHQ were also blocked for the same reason, he said.

The park now serves as a parking space for more than 300 police motorbikes.

Barbed wires have been used to secure the place and entry to the park is strictly prohibited.

Nabeela Ghazanfar, the PHQ public relations director, said that the park belonged to the LDA and the PHA had nothing to do with it. She said the land was used by the PHQ personnel since they did not have a parking lot of their own. She said parking police vehicles in the parking for visitors was not safe.

“Employees who have cars park them inside the PHQ building. Motorbikes are not allowed inside due to security reasons,” she said.

PHA officials said that they had asked the IG several times to vacate the plot, but to no avail. Muhammad Yaqoob, the PHA Zone 4 director, told The Tribune that the land used as a parking lot by the PHQ was legally in direct control of the PHA. He said that PHQ claim that the land belonged LDA_ even if correct_ could be no justification for the encroachment.

He regretted that all letters written to the IGP through the PHA Director General Abdul Jabbar Shaheen had been ignored.

“If it wasn’t the IGP office, we would have got the land vacated much earlier. But confronting a police is beyond consideration,” he said.

He regretted that instead of helping vacate encroached lands, the police had themselves taken over public land. He said that the PHA will continue voicing its concern.

Sohail Janjua, the LDA spokesman told The Tribune that the land could not be used for parking as it had been declared a public park.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2011.