The land grabbers are back to business in Karachi after the return of their supporters to parliament after May 11 polls.
Investigation revealed that the land grabbers have started occupying open public properties which they failed to occupy during the last government. Besides, many government offices and residential houses, situated in prime land of metropolis, are occupied by land grabbers for the last many years.
Interestingly, the former provincial government had declared some buildings dangerous and issued orders to demolish them but the land mafia forced the government not to even remove a single brick from there.
Sources told Pakistan Today that the Postal and Telegraph Colony, commonly known as P&T Colony, situated in Clifton, was occupied by retired employees of the department for the last many years. After the partition, the government established its offices in these flats and some of the employees also started living in these governmental apartments, but after their retirement they occupied them, sources added.
The former government declared the occupation of these buildings illegal but due to stronghold of land mafia these buildings were regularised against huge bribes by the officials at that time, sources said further.
The government offices situated in Martin Quarters, Jamshed Quarters and Patel Para were also occupied by retired employees with the help of land mafia, sources maintained.
A federal minister during former prime minister Shaukat Aziz’s tenure had issued allotment orders to the occupants due to which the Sindh government faced Rs 420 billion losses. The allotment of these plots by the government was challenged in the Sindh High Court (SHC), sources claimed.
The governmental apartments of Federal Capital (FC) Area, situated opposite to Al Karam Square, were occupied by “unauthorised persons” and living there for a long time, they said, adding that the occupants were enjoying all utilities at government expense.
“Another example of illegal occupation of government land was the Intelligence School, which is situated near PIDC, and many other illegal encroachments at Garden are the example,” sources revealed.
They said that at some places the occupants have established small industries and using all utilities at subsidised rates.
