LAHORE: Special Assistant to Punjab CM on Information Hasaan Khawar has said that 180,000 acres of encroached land has been retrieved so far.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Hasaan Khawar said that, unfortunately, state land in Pakistan has always been considered the easiest prey by the land mafia. Due to this, some 223000 acre state land, belonging to Forest, Revenue, Auqaf and other departments, worth Rs472 billion, was brazenly encroached upon. Of this, 7,000 acres were in urban areas and about 216,000 were in rural areas. On the special instructions of Prime Minister Imran Khan, so far, one hundred and eighty thousand acres of this encroached land has been retrieved.
He said that the relinquished land would be handed over to the concerned departments and this land would be used for projects of public welfare. He said that Sardar Usman Buzdar has strictly directed for the retrieval of the remaining 35,000 acres in the next five weeks.
Khawar said that encroachment upon government lands was not possible without the connivance of the sitting government, government officials and the land mafia. A forensic audit of fires in the previous government will prove this point.
He said that these 223,000 cases of encroachment were in fact receipts of the incompetence of the previous government. In a short span of three years, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has effectively demonstrated that grit is the only requirement to ensure effective implementation of the system.
Responding to a question, he said that although 43 people from the identified land mafia have been cabinet and assembly members of the previous government, it was not correct to call the action against the occupation groups as political revenge.
These measures are purely aimed at establishing the writ of the state. He added that for the first time in the history of the country, a record of encroachments on government lands was being compiled. In addition, government officials found to be involved with the occupation groups, if found guilty, will be prosecuted.
