Hard to break land mafia’s hold, admit civic officials

Karachi
Officials of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation while talking to The News conceded that their efforts to rid the city of encroachment faced a strong resistance from the mafia which supported it.
“Even though an operation against the land grabbers has continued without a break for a long time, the mafia is so powerful that the civic agencies don’t seem to catch a break,” said a senior officer of the KMC who wished to remain anonymous. “For example there in an operation against illegal vendors around the Empress Market twice a week but they come back with full strength again.”
Similar is the case in other commercial areas such as Clifton, Liaquatabad and Tariq Road, among others.
Storm water drains, however, had seen the worst and most occupation of land by illegal means. The officials of KMC pointed out that land of several storm water drains in the city, including the Gujjar nullah, Manzoor Colony nullah, Green Town nullah and Orangi nullah had all been encroached upon and their land sold.
However, they said, the law-enforcement agencies had now begun to take action against land grabbers and had recently made quite a few arrests. Officials claimed that last Wednesday, a senior land director of the corporation was arrested for his alleged involvement in illegal occupation of land.
The scribe met different officials of the KMC and found keeping their fingers crossed to see the results of raids being conducted by the law-enforcement agencies.
Meanwhile, the Sindh minister for local government who is spearheading the campaign against encroachment and has so far demolished and shut down up to 80 wedding halls built on amenity plots, said he had also appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to order subordinate courts not to grant stay orders against businesses built on illegal land.
However, a number of wedding hall owners claimed that the operation seemed to be biased towards the businesses owned by members of a certain political party.
Administrator KMC Saqib Ahmed Soomro said a powerful mafia was behind encroachment of land in the city, and municipalities faced a stern resistance from them. However, he also echoed that the government had decided to rid the city of this menace and amenity plots will be cleared and their allotment for other purposes will stand cancelled. The necessary changes in the law were also being made, he said.