Railways officers face contempt notices

Applicant claims officials demolished homes on ancestral land despite a stay order

RAWALPINDI:

Additional District and Sessions Judge Chaudhry Qasim Javed has issued show-cause notices for contempt of court to four railway officers, the station house officers (SHOs) of Railway and Ratta police stations, over a major operation on 12 kanals and eight marlas of commercial land in Rawalpindi claimed by a citizen as his ancestral property.

The respondents have been summoned to submit their replies on November 5.

In his contempt petition, Khalid Mahmood maintained that the land near the railway station had belonged to his family since before the creation of Pakistan. He said his father transferred the property to him in 1976 and submitted the registered deed from that year to the court.

He claimed that the commercial land was worth billions of rupees and that poor families had been living in makeshift and permanent houses there for 40 years.

He questioned the authority of the railway department to conduct the operation when he had no objection to their residence on the land.

He alleged that Divisional Engineer (DN) Railway Rawalpindi Tayyab Riaz, Shahzaib and Nasir Jadoon arrived with railway personnel, police and cranes.

They allegedly threw ground red pepper into the eyes of women and children in house after house, leaving them in distress. When the affected residents went to hospital, all their houses were bulldozed, destroying valuable household belongings and the dowry articles of their daughters.

He alleged that the railway authorities had forcibly occupied his ancestral land, amounting to contempt of court and an abuse of power.

A case concerning the same property is pending before a civil court, where a stay order has been issued, he added.

The petitioner requested contempt proceedings against the railway officers and the SHOs concerned, along with an order for compensation for the losses suffered.

The court admitted the petition for hearing and issued contempt notices.