Land-grabbing victim seeks justice

Alleges revenue official forged documents to transfer 404 kanals to real estate owner


Saleh Mughal May 23, 2024

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RAWALPINDI:

A citizen has appealed to the prime minister, the chief justice of Pakistan, the chief justice of the Lahore High Court (LHC) and the Punjab chief minister for justice after he was allegedly deprived of hundreds of kanal lands by the provincial revenue department officials.

The complainant alleges that his land record was tempered in Rawalpindi and later sold. He says he is still awaiting relief despite getting his case registered with the Anti-Corruption Establishment ((ACE) and the investigations have found the suspects guilty.

Taimoor Basharat, in his application to the authorities, submitted that he possessed ancestral land in Mauza Murt. The owner of a private housing society transferred the victim’s 404 kanal of land to the former’s name in official records. As the matter came to the complainant’s notice, he approached the ACE Rawalpindi for action. The ACE investigated the matter, executed forensics of the transfer of land and detected the tempering. A case under Sections (420/468) and (PCA-5-2147471/PPC) was lodged against Patwari Arshad of the revenue department Rawalpindi and his accomplice. The ACE’s investigations also found that both were involved in the tempering.

Arshad managed to secure bail from a court and got the investigation transferred to Lahore without any solid reason. Taimoor continued to appear in Lahore with the evidence, but his case was dropped.

The victim then appeared before ACE director-general Sohail Zafar Chatta Zafar who after hearing his complaint reprimanded the Investigating Officer, who is the acting Director of Admin HQ Lahore, and ordered a reinvestigation in the case. When two months passed without any progress the complainant again approached the DG who again ordered reinvestigation of the case. According to Taimoor, he couldn’t get relief despite passing five months of second re-investigation orders of the DG.

The complainant later came to know that a person from Mian Channu submitted a fake inheritance document of the victim’s piece of land and obtained a record sheet to his (Taimoor) name. The suspect later sold the land to a private housing society.

In his complaints to all top authorities, the complainant states that a lot of injustices have been done to him and he is running from pillar to post to get his land back but to no avail. He demanded justice and stern action against the influential accused.

The Express Tribune tried to contact the ACE DG for the version, but the officer neither answered phone calls nor replied to the text messages.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23rd, 2024.

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