Anti-encroachment drive: Ex-minister accused of patronising encroachers

Ashraf Sohna denies the charge, says he had just requested the TMA staff not to misbehave with vendors .

LAHORE:

Okara tehsil municipal administration has accused a former provincial minister of obstructing an anti-encroachment drive in the city. The former minister, Ashraf Sohna, has rejected the allegations and has maintained that the administration is undertaking a smear and harassment campaign against him because he intervened on behalf of some vendors whose stalls were removed during the drive on Okara Bypass Road.

Okara police have received applications from both TMA administrator Sheikh Fareed and Sohna but have not registered FIRs. Instead, they say they will try and negotiate their differences out of court. Okara City DSP Tariq Zafar told The Express Tribune that district police and administration teams would soon meet both parties for the purpose..

In his complaint filed with the DPO on April 20, TMA administrator Fareed accused the former minister of patronising encroachers and obstructing an anti-encroachment drive in the city. It alleged that Sohna had demanded that the administration let him encroach upon state land along Okara Bypass Road where he wanted some of his supporters to set up stalls. “He threatened the TMA officers with dire consequences on their refusal to allow encroachments on state land,” it said.  The complaint added that Sohna had later allegedly burnt TMA property and beat up staff members near his petrol pump on the bypass road. Other allegations in the complaint against Sohna were: pressing the TMA to let him put up billboards at various locations in the city and seeking award of contracts for various public works to his supporters.

Talking to The Tribune, TMA administrator Fareed said removal of encroachments was underway in the city on the directives of the chief minister. He said the former minister had been patronising some of the encroachers and was now feeling vulnerable because the administration was proceeding against them.

Sohna dismissed all allegations raised against him by the TMA as baseless.

He said he had visited the office of the TMA administration on request of some of the vendors whose stalls were removed from the bypass road. “The vendors told me that the TMA staff had assaulted them during the operation. I went to the TMA officer to forward their complaint against the staff to the TMA administrator, he said.

Sohna said he had just requested the administrator to stop his staff who were mistreating the vendors. However, he said, instead of listening to his request the TMA administration started a smear campaign in the city against him. “The TMA held a demonstration where their staff used loudspeaker to chant slogans against me.

This is a violation of the Punjab Sound Systems (Regulation) Ordinance of 2015,” he said.

He also alleged that the TMA administrator had directed his staff to dump truck-load of garbage in front of one of his petrol pumps in the city. He said he had reported both incidents to police.

The TMA administrator denied that he had directed anyone to dump garbage in front of Sohna’s petrol pump. He alleged that the garbage truck was seized by some of Sohna’s men who later dumped the garbage in front of the pump on his instructions so that he could later blame the TMA for it.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2015.