Unpaid plot capers: CDA officers face jail ‘for following rules’

Say interior secretary threatened to jail them for refusing to turn over a plot to police .

ISLAMABAD:

Three CDA officers have reported a case of alleged intimidation and arm wringing that they say took place at the office of the interior secretary on Thursday.

The officers were there to brief Interior Secretary Shahid Khan on the allotment of a plot in Islamabad for the establishment of a Rapid Response Force (RRF) office.

After the CDA officials refused to turn over a plot of land to the police because the law enforcers had still not paid for it, the interior secretary ordered the Islamabad Police DIG, who was also present, to arrest the civic agency officials for failing to comply with his orders.

The officials are now in a fix and have submitted their version of events to their high ups and sought directions on whether or not they should issue an allotment letter.

“[On] November 19, a meeting for allotment of land to RRF was held with secretary interior in chair. We, the CDA deputy-director general (finance) Fazl-e-Mehbood, director urban planning Ijaz Sheikh, and deputy director estate management-II Saba Asim, attended the meeting,” the officials wrote to the CDA chairman.

“The secretary asked us if we brought along the allotment letter, to which we answered no,” the statement reads, adding that they informed the secretary interior that an allotment cannot be made because the Islamabad Police have yet to make the payment for the plot.

“After which the Secretary Interior directed DIG Police to arrest the three of us in case the allotment letter does not reach his office by 9am in the morning [on Friday],” the officials wrote.

The letter to the chairman CDA has been signed by all three CDA officers.

The officials were acting on CDA rules, which do not allow the issuance of allotment letters without clearance of the full payment.

Interior Secretary Shahid Khan directed The Express Tribune to approach the ministry’s public relations department, but when told of the accusation against him, he said, “Holding a meeting [with the CDA officers] was just part of official duty and not a personal grudge.”

The force was formed in 2014 under the National Internal Security Policy of the incumbent government. The RRF is meant to respond any extreme situation or threat to security anywhere the capital city.

The “PM has yet to grant approval for allotment of the plot at subsidised rates,” said a senior estate management wing official.

He said the CDA had issued an offer letter for the plot to the police in a goodwill gesture, but it was decided that the allotment letter would only be issued upon payment and approval from the office of the prime minister.

He said the aggrieved officers were considering going to court over the alleged act of intimidation. 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2015.