LAHORE – After 19 days of cut-throat anti-encroachment drive, all sorts of encroachments, recently demolished on 35 localities, are back with all their might, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Making mockery of Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif’s rhetoric that encroachments will never remerge, squatters have started reoccupying the places retrieved by City District Government Lahore (CDGL) squads under the supervision of Lahore District Coordination Officer (DCO) Ahad Cheema.
Rearing their ugly heads again in Baghbanpura, Ferozepure Road, Abid Market, Shalimar Chowk, Shalimar Link Road, encroachments are again spreading like flash flood in other areas. Qasim Ali, a trader in Data Gunj Bakhsh Town, said that the district government was fully aware that no one could encroach on government land without the ‘help’ of officials deployed to ensure that state infrastructure was free from encroachments.
“Cart owners and shopkeepers certainly pay some price to use land for commercial purposes. Officials help encroachers as they raid infrequently and also take a lenient view when encroachments reappear after raids,” he added. CDGL Shalimar Town Administrator Amir Khan admitted the reoccurrences of encroachments. Eating humble pie, he said that overwhelming political pressures, shopkeepers’ associations and other factors were behind the misfortune.
He said that Baghbanpura bazaar was different as its traders’ association was the only one which never supported the drive and wanted the encroachers back. Amir said that Baghbanpura bazaar’s exact width was 40 feet, which had shrunk. “The demolition operation started but encroachments remerged. We are not getting aggressive as the Mela Charaghan in the vicinity of Baghbanpura bazaar is underway. As soon as the mela concludes, the CDGL will nab the violators and raze out the encroachments once for all,” he vowed.
“We have also chalked out a strategy to check reemergence of encroachments by reshuffling town officers so that they could not establish links with the mafia,” a CDGL officer told Pakistan Today that with the reemergence phenomenon, Cheema had been cheating the CM and people by getting fake data published about retrieving government land from squatters.
According to an advertisement published on Tuesday, anti-encroachment drives were underway at Ferozepure Road, Bhaati Chowk, Harbanspura, Moza Panj Ghaziabad, Khokar Shahdara Railway Crossing Road, Moza Khudpura Multan Road, Baghbanpura, Moza Sajpal Lahore Cantt, Maanga Mandi, Dallu Khurd Lahore Cantt, Attu Asal Lahore Cantt, Tehpanchu Main Kachah Road, Manga Tehar (Manga Mandi), Rakh Bangali Barki Road, Shahdara Agriculture Land, Raiwind Main Bazzar, Jogan Lodahray, Nehla near Manga Raiwind Road, Circular Road opposite Lorri Adda, Federal Colony, Ichrah Muslim Town, Qila Gujjar Singh, Moza Mazang, Shahdara River Ravi, Nolakha opposite Nolakha Police Station, Qila Gujjar Singh Lakshami Chowk, Queens Road, Sandan Kalan,, Mazang Lawrence Road and Bangali Village.
He said that during the operation 2,397 kanals worth more than Rs 3.5 billion had been retrieved. “But it is surprising that despite taking back large-scale areas, there is no difference at all before the after the operation. Congestion at bazaars and roads are still present and visible change about which the CDGL claimed at start of the encroachment drive could not be felt by any quarter,” he added.
The official said that data was fake and just being prepared to appease Shahbaz. A town official said that the mainstay of the anti-encroachment drive was to establish a monitoring mechanism to follow-up the campaign. But the drive had to be started without the important tool as CM had ordered to start it forthwith, so the CDGL had no time to work on developing the follow-up cell, he added.
The official said that 25 big markets and 185 major roads under control of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) and 81 big markets and 111 major roads in the CDGL’s jurisdiction were being targeted during the anti-encroachment drive.
