Peshawar admin retrieves 13 kanals from land grabbers

PESHAWAR: The district administration during an operation retrieved 13 kanals of precious government land worth Rs1 billion from influential land grabbers here.
Deputy Commissioner Riaz Khan Mehsud supervised the operation. The assistant commissioners and senior police officials were also present on the occasion. According to senior officials of the district administration, influential land grabbers had seized 13 kanals of government property in Peshawar’s expensive commercial area. The land grabbers used to pay Rs5,000 per month as its rent to the government.
“The government has retrieved the precious piece of land near the now defunct Shabistan Cinema from the grabbers, who were neither willing to pay its rent according to the market rate nor wanted to return the property. Its market value is over Rs1 billion,” the official said.
Those, who had captured the property, had rented it out to many other sub-contractors and shopkeepers. “This precious land had been in control of these powerful people since 1992. They used to generate millions of rupees every year from this property. They used it for fruit market and shops,” the official said. He added the land grabbers caused billions of rupees loss to the exchequer. The district administration had made proper security arrangements for taking control of the government land.
Besides the police, Levies personnel from the Frontier Region Peshawar, were also called in during the operation.
Riaz Khan Mehsud said they had retrieved 13 kanals from the land grabbers. He said the property had been in their possession for last many years and they were reluctant to surrender it. “The drive will continue till the recovery of the public property from the land grabbers,” the deputy commissioner said.
Meanwhile, the district administration sealed a beverage factory for producing fake cold drinks of international brands in Peshawar.
The raiding team of the district administration, headed by Assistant Commissioner Mumtaz Ahmad recovered a large quantity of fake cold drinks from a beverage factory.