‘Action against illegal housing societies to expose grabbers’

LAHORE:Senior Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal has said that indiscriminate action is being taken against illegal housing societies across Punjab, including Lahore.

The government will expose qabza mafia who loot the money of the poor and bring them under the grip of the law to recover the looted money. In the EOBI scandal, Aleem Khan cleaned his hands of the money of the poor by colluding with the chairman of the institution. He showed the lands of a housing society to the people and sell them lands inside the river and then bought lands in Gulberg, Lahore and Islamabad with the proceeds. Aslam Iqbal expressed these views while addressing a press conference here Thursday. Provincial Ministers Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak, Sardar Asif Nakai, Adviser Home Omer Sarfraz Cheema and the Punjab government’s spokesperson Mussarrat Jamshed Cheema were also present. Senior Minister said that Aleem Khan, the leader of the qabza mafia, built a housing society, which is now included in the DHA. In this colony too, he sold extra plots and collected billions of rupees by selling files to people. He occupied the land of the school on Barki Road, added the official road of Shahpur Kanjran to his colony and cut and sold the plots on both sides of this road. The 2.5 kanal land allocated for parking and road, according to the approved map of LDA, was included in the society where he also built his office. Commercial plots were also created and sold out on an area of 10 kanals and 75 marlas which was originally meant for the graveyard. He even cut people's lands and built a mosque named after his father, cheated the people by pretending that the cemetery of Christians was the cemetery of his society; made money by selling the mortgaged lands. The faces of those building mosques and charitable institutions on government and private lands were exposed to the public, he remarked.

Aleem Khan scammed Rs34 billion along with the chairman of EOBI. Another terrible scandal of his was that he had no vehicle, no office, and no farmhouse which was not pledged by the bank. The person took Rs25 billion from the banks by mortgaging the land.

The minister said that he requested the State Bank Governor to take notice of it. He also requested the Supreme Court to hear and decide the case of EOBI so that the orphans, widows, poor and labourers could get back the stolen money, he added. “I request the Supreme Court to hear the case of housing society,” he added. He said that NAB had also sent a notice to him and NAB chairman should look into this matter. In response to a question, the senior minister said that the LDA has been fulfilling its responsibility to retrieve the land from the qabza mafia, but Aleem Khan has taken stay orders from the courts.