Long arms: AC’s office attacked over encroachment removal

Lawyers had built a residential colony over state-owned land

DERA GHAZI KHAN:

A case was registered against Dera Ghazi Khan Bar President Salima Raza Khan Kakar and several others on Wednesday after protesting lawyers ransacked the assistant commissioner’s office and damaged public property.

The case was registered on the complaint of Cantt AC Tariq Mehmood Awan in Darahma police station.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Awan said the lawyers had broken into his officer after he led an anti-encroachment operation on 571-kanal land worth billions of rupees on the directions of the Board of Revenue on Tuesday night.

He said the government had planned 10 public welfare projects including a rehabilitation centre for the disabled and a workers welfare school.

He said on Wednesday morning scores of lawyers besieged his office, chanting slogans against him. He said they had broken into the office and smashed windows and furniture. He said they were driven out by a police team led by Civil Lines SHO Ali Imran. He said workers at the office had been forced to flee when the lawyers broke in.

Earlier, hundreds of lawyers had protested on Kutchery Road and had blocked it for traffic. On being forced to leave the AC’s office, they had gone towards the DCO’s Office but he was out of the city.

Meanwhile, some revenue officials protested against the lawyers for attacking office.

The AC said lawyers were claiming that the operation was not justified.

“There is no land allotted for a lawyers’ colony” he said. He said lawyers had an filed an application to the Board of Revenue but it had been rejected.

Addressing the rally at Kutchery Road, Bar President Salim Raza Khan Kakar had said District and Sessions Judge Abdul Mustafa Nadeem had distributed plots in the Lawyer’s Colony. He said lawyers had completed all the paper work for the colony. He said removal of lawyers living there was against the law. General Secretary Salim Jan Khosa had also addressed the rally.

The lawyers also protested against police for registering the FIR against Kakar.

They said he had been implicated in a false case of possession of a Kalashnikov.

The lawyers said that the officials involved in the encroachment drive should be taken to task.

They said Cantt AC Tariq Mehmood Awan should be transferred immediately.

The lawyers said that they would expand their protest demonstrations across the province if their demands were not met.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2015.