Commissioner requests development authority to provide heavy machinery to demolish encroachments. PHOTO: EXPRESS
The anti-encroachment drive will take place in Akhunabad graveyard at Kakshal, where encroachers have built commercial plazas and shops.
Peshawar Deputy Commissioner Javed Marwat has directed the Peshawar Development Authority to provide heavy machinery to demolish illegal commercial and residential properties erected at the site. Elite force personnel have also been called to assist MCP officials to avert any untoward incidents.
Marwat, while talking to The Express Tribune said, “We have already begun constructing boundary walls around the graveyards which the civic government retrieved earlier. The provincial government’s allocated amount of Rs20 million is, however, not sufficient to build boundaries around all sites retrieved from graveyard encroachers.”
Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Dost Muhammad, had taken suo motu notice of the encroachment of lands and issued several directives to the government in this regard.
Illegal encroachments by the land mafia have resulted in shrinking of graveyard land in Peshawar. Locals who have to bury their dead in Akhunabad, Rehman Baba and Shaikh Haider Baba cemeteries find it particularly difficult to get space.
The Express Tribune on various visits to these cemeteries found that families of the deceased have to dig up older graves in order to lay their dear ones to rest. Furthermore, various families have constructed boundary walls within the cemeteries, reserving that space for themselves and causing further shrinkage of space in the graveyard.
Civil society members of the city have also initiated a movement called ‘Qabristan Bachao Tehreek’ to create awareness regarding the issue.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 23rd, 2013.
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