ISLAMABAD, Feb 14: The city managers on Monday said they have reclaimed more than 1,000 kanals of state land from encroachers in Banigala.

“CDA took the land into its possession in an anti-encroachment operation in Banigala,” said the Capital Development Authority spokesman. No structure was demolished and no resistance was faced during the operation, which, the CDA bosses said was conducted in Chak Bera Singh, Jhoke Jheja and Lakhwal villages.

The reason is that the operation was carried out in open fields fenced by some locals for agriculture purpose, and not in those encroached areas where thousands of houses have been built. “The operation was launched in the light of Supreme Court’s directives to get the state land vacated from adverse possession in different areas of the capital,” the spokesman said.

Officials of local administration and police took part in the operation for the land acquired in 1960 and 1961 in the first phase of establishing the capital. Director General (planning) Ghulam Sarwar Sindhu and Director Enforcement Mohammad Ramzan Joya jointly led the operation, which will continue on Tuesday. Apart from fences and pillars, the authority will also set up check points and pickets to secure the acquired land.

It has been learnt that the CDA has been ignoring the areas of ‘chronic encroachments’ like sectors G-12, F-12, E-12, E-13, I-11 and I-12 where thousands of houses units have been constructed illegally. The authority planning to open many stalled sectors cannot do so mainly because of not acquiring land.

A source in the civic body said its bosses were focusing on those illegally occupied areas where there is no structure to retrieve them easily to claim before the SC that they were following its orders.

Ahmed Sufi and Murtaza Rizvi, who have been living in the capital for long, maintained there was no let-up in land grabbing in Islamabad, adding that even greenbelts of IJ Principal Road, Kashmir Highway and Islamabad Highway are not safe from encroachers.

On the other hand the CDA chairman claimed that the authority had worked out a ‘comprehensive strategy’ in collaboration with the local administration and police to reclaim land from the illegal occupants.

The authority’s spokesman said CDA has served “prior notice on all such occupants through national media to vacate CDA land in their possession in their own interest”.