Land grabbing: Teachers, students move squatters from university land

HYDERABAD:

Hundreds of teachers and students from the University of Sindh (SU) took the law into their hands on Friday and tried to force land grabbers to move from a piece of land reserved for a housing society for the varsity.

The protest was led by teachers association and administrative staff.

They uprooted the tents pitched on the land by the squatters.

The land has been earmarked for the development of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Staff Housing Scheme. At a meeting with the district administration and police officials, the acting vice-chancellor of the university, Prof Imdad Ismaili, said that the varsity will lodge an FIR against the people who tried to occupy the land illegally by setting up tents on it. He added that the squatters were armed with guns and had already resisted when the police tried to remove them.

The scheme was supposed to be spread over 300 acres of land in Jamshoro near the Super Highway.

"If anyone has any claim to this the land, they should establish it officially instead of occupying it," he said. "The university was allotted this land in 1995 and since then it has remained in our possession."

The DC Subail Adeeb Bachani and SSP Naeem Shaikh assured the university that a permanent police post would be set up in the area to prevent future attempts from land grabbers.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2015.