LAHORE: Senior Provincial Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal Saturday urged the Corps Commander Lahore to look into the reports about merger of a portion of Park View Society into Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Lahore as 3,000 people were suffering.
Aslam Iqbal while addressing press conference here at 90 Sharaye Quaid-e-Azam also targeted former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Abdul Aleem Khan’s Housing Society, Park View, and claimed that Aleem Khan committed a fraud of Rs 250-300 billion in the illegal housing society Park View Society whose former name was River Edge.
The minister warned that the government will definitely take into account of the alleged fraud as over 3000 poor people had been affected.
“Indiscriminate actions are being taken against illegal housing societies and sellers of surplus plot files across Punjab. These mafias have become so powerful that they do not bother about the courts and the government. If legal actions are taken against them, they torture the employees of the institutions. This land mafia [Aleem Khan] also played with the hard earned money of orphans, widows, poor and laborers in the EOBI,” he said.
Iqbal claimed that any housing society can be established only under the master plan but the land mafia [Aleem Khan] cheated the people by selling 15,000 to 16,000 additional plots in the green area.
He also revealed that the subsidized electricity received for tubewells on agricultural land was sold to the residents of the society and LESCO was suffering a loss of RS 40 million per month whereas this electricity theft has been going on for the last 16 years.
“River Edge Housing Society is approved only on 765 kanal of land and nothing can be constructed on even an inch of it. In this regard, the case is in the court, yet the development works are carried out here brazenly by this mafia. The LDA (Lahore Development Authority) sent 17 notices to the owner of this illegal society and NAB also took notice but this land mafia does not care about it,” the minister said.
“He [Aleem Khan] committed fraud with the poor in his society and built a mosque and named after his father. Then Aleem also built the grave of his father and mother on LDA lands. He also sold more than ten kanals of land allocated for graveyard as commercial plot and fraudulently declared the Christian cemetery as his society’s cemetery,” alleged the minister.
Iqbal further revealed that a member of this mafia approached DG LDA and offered Rs 500 million to regularize the Park View Society which was rejected. Later, this offer was increased four times but still the illegal society could not get legal status.
“I am repeatedly informing the public about this fraud committed by Aleem Khan. All Aleem Khan’s assets have been pledged to banks. I request the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Lahore High Court, State Bank of Pakistan and NAB to look into the fraudulent activities of Aleem Khan’s companies and give justice to the people,” he concluded.
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