Minister orders strict action against illegal housing societies

LAHORE:Senior Provincial Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal has said that it has been decided to take strict action against illegal housing societies across the province.

The land mafia has become so strong that law enforcement agencies seemed helpless in front of them. - The poor man sells everything of his own and buys a plot in these illegal societies, but later he finds out that he has been deceived, he stated. Therefore, it has been decided to take strict action against illegal housing societies throughout Punjab. The minister expressed these views while addressing a press conference here Sunday. The qabza groups should know that now they will have to face action, he said.

The senior minister said, the owner of illegal housing society submitted an application in 2012 for expansion of a housing scheme but the LDA rejected the application as it was agricultural land. Secretary Housing also dismissed the appeal as it was a green area as per Master Plan 2004 where no building could be constructed.

Then they went to court and got a stay order and continued to carry out development work in this illegal residential scheme - LDA sent them 17 notices from 2010 to 2022 but they did not stop development work on this illegal land.

The accused committed a fraud of Rs50 billion with the poor people and five cases are registered against them. LDA has made it clear several times that constructions can be done only on 765 kanals of land in the housing scheme. Whenever the institutions took action against illegal constructions, they were threatened with violence. Four days ago, when 55 kanals of government land retrieved, the relevant revenue officer, police and RUDA employees were tortured. This is the mafia that built people's houses in the river belt - even government land was sold.

90 booked over illegal occupation of land: Chuhng police registered a case against 90 persons on the allegation of illegally possessing land of the Irrigation Department. The case was registered under Sections 353/186, 148/149 on the complaint of SDO Irrigation. The private housing scheme owners and their management, through their guards, had attacked district administration officers and officials who came for anti-encroachment operation and damaged government vehicles and machinery.