The encroachment menace

K-P government must handle encroachers, who often use intimidatory tactics to seize land, with an iron hand.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) Auqaf department, whose chief function is to manage mosques, shrines and dargahs, as well as to look after devotees performing religious rites there, finds itself in a spot of trouble. A huge chunk of Waqf properties it manages across the province to earn revenue has been encroached upon not only by thugs and ruffians, but also by government departments. A report in this newspaper estimates the land-grab at 47,000 kanals, which potentially can generate millions of rupees in revenue, if not billions. But as things stand today, the province’s coffers are receiving ‘next to nothing’, to use the words of an official familiar with the situation.



The property is spread in all the key districts, with Mardan topping the chart in terms of suffering the largest land-grab of 40,000 kanals. To a lesser degree, Peshawar, Nowshera, Mansehra and Karak districts also face the encroachment problem. The provincial government has a hard task at hand to reclaim its precious assets. Not that the problem is unique to the K-P government alone. Other provinces also face a similar situation, only in varying degrees. The fact that district administrations are not lending a helping hand to the Auqaf department to wrench back control of the encroached property is not helping matters either.

Nevertheless, the provincial government needs to swing into action and launch a crackdown on remorseless land grabbers. It must not countenance the guilty parties, however influential, and take back the prime tracts of land and other property. It must handle encroachers, who often use intimidatory and bullying tactics to seize prized parcels of land, with an iron hand. In the K-P government’s case, its own departments are said to be among the wrongdoers, holding Auqaf property in their clutches. They should also similarly be made to relinquish these assets, so that the earnings from rents, contracts and leases accruing from them go where they legitimately belong. A cash-strapped department cannot be expected to carry out the functions it is tasked with, unless it keeps receiving the revenue stream it rightly deserves. The Auqaf department should zealously pursue its case to achieve this end.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2014.

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