Demo against land grabbing in Khairpur

SUKKUR: The civil society, lawyers, political workers staged a demonstration here on Monday against land grabbers and illegal occupants.
Reports said President District Bar Association Khairpur, Manzoor Husain Ansari had given the call for the rally against the land grabbers and poor governance in Khairpur. The call was backed by the PTI, PML-N, PML-F, JSQM and civil society Khairpur. Hundreds of political workers, lawyers and a large number of citizens gathered at the Maryam Tomb Khairpur with their respective flags, staged a demonstration and established a protest camp.
Addressing the rally participants, ex-MPA Sardar Imtiaz Husain Phulpoto, PML-N leader Abdul Majeed Sheikh, JSQM General Secretary Amjad Mahaisar, Syed Rahman Shah, Mumtaz Rind, Syed Shakir Shah and others alleged that the Sindh government was behind land grabbing in Khairpur. They said the state lands have been grabbed by the ruling party heavy, weights where they constructed shopping plazas and bungalows.
They said forest lands, irrigation and agricultural lands have also been grabbed by the men of the ruling party with the support of the officials of Khairpur, who tampered with the revenue record and made illegal transfers of state lands in their names and leased out plots worth billions rupees. They said the city of the CM Sindh was being grabbed but the CM did not take any notice. They said the grabbers attempted to even grab the plots of colleges and schools of the Khairpur State.
They demanded the demolition of various shopping centres, removal of illegal encroachment from Mumtaz Colony, removal of shopping centre from a graveyard, cancellation of illegally allotted Cattle Piri, a shopping centre from Jado Shah graveyard; removal of the illegally occupied properties of the people of Kot Diji, Kumb.
They demanded protection and preservation of the cultural heritage of Khairpur and to properly utilise funds for preservation of heritage places. They also called for the computerisation of record and data base of all public-cum-private properties and survey all over Khairpur so that real owners of the properties could be ascertained. It was also demanded that honest, efficient and well-repute officials should be posted in Khairpur.
Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Khairpur, with ASP City visited the demonstrators’ camp and announced the removal of illegal encroachments after verifying the record. He told the demonstrators that he had visited them on the directions of CM Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah. He assured on behalf of the CM that action would be taken against the land grabbers. The demonstrators, after his assurance, ended their demo.