China cutting: KDA land director detained by Rangers

KARACHI: The Karachi Development Authority’s (KDA) land director, Najmuz Zaman, has been taken into custody by the Rangers on Wednesday morning for his alleged involvement in ‘China cutting’ - a term that relates to encroaching public land, cutting small plots, settling people on them and then getting them regularised. Though the Rangers spokesperson did not confirm the arrest till late Wednesday evening, KDA officials admitted that the grade-20 officer was arrested by the paramilitary personnel from his residence in North Nazimabad. Rangers sources revealed, however, that Zaman was arrested on the basis of information provided by Babar Chughtai, a former chairperson of the Association of Builders and Developers who is already in the Rangers’ 90-day preventive detention. “We have substantial evidence that suggests his involvement in China-cutting of reserved government land and using it for illegal residential schemes,” said the source.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2015.