Controversial issue: Land mafia, residents’ association and educationists fight for college land

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has issued notices to the Karachi commissioner, the secretaries of the education, land utilisation, works and services departments and police authorities on a petition regarding the alleged usurpation of land allocated for a government degree college for girls in the Sachal neighbourhood of Karachi.

Headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, the bench will take up the matter on May 15 to see the authorities' reports.

Four persons had taken the secretaries of the land utilisation, education, works and services departments, Karachi commissioner, East zone DIG, Sachal police station SHO and others to the court.

The petitioners, who claimed to be striving to promote education, said that the provincial government had approved a degree college for girls living in Sachal in the annual development projects for the year 2007-2008. Even the handing and taking over of the eight-acre amenity land for the college building had taken place between the relevant government departments on October 19, 2011. They further said that, despite the allocation of funds to construct the college by the education and literacy department, the construction work could not be initiated due to obstacles being created by members of the land mafia. The latter had filed frivolous cases without having any entitlement, in collusion with the government officials.

The petitioners had alleged that the aim of such persons was to delay the project so that the funds allocated for the college may lapse. They had pleaded to the court to take notice of the deliberate delays and order the relevant authorities to build the college within the stipulated time.

The event took a new turn on Monday, when an application was filed by the association of the residents of Shaheed Shah Inayat village, pleading to allow them to join the proceedings as intervener.

They claimed that the college was to be built on an area of land measuring 1.75 acres, but the petitioners had mentioned wrong facts in the court to encroach upon the rest of the amenity land.

Levelling counter-allegations, the association blamed the petitioners of attempting to usurp the land in the name of constructing a girls' college.

The bench therefore issued notices to the petitioners as well as the relevant authorities for May 15 to file their comments in this regard.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2014.