HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad central prison has laid claim, on the basis of a flimsy proof, to a pricey piece of around nine acres of land which happens to be some meters away from the prison along the same road and a property of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation according to record of rights.

The HMC had established a bus terminal on the land near Hala Naka off National Highway and now the district administration, at the behest of jail authorities, is forcing transporters to vacate it, arguing that it threatens the prison’s security.

Inquiries by Dawn reveal the transporters are resisting the move. They say the district administration is driving them out without allotting them separate alternate stands for buses and vans, which will certainly lead to acrimony among them.

Besides, the new location was quite away from the city centre and it would force commuters to bear additional expenses to reach there, they contended.

Amid reports that a private party which had earlier lost a property case to HMC in a lower court is also vying for the land, HMC officials justifiably smell a rat behind the entire saga round the precious land which is worth over a billion of rupees as per current market value.

“There are reports this party is working in collusion with the prison in order to create third party interest to make matters more complicated and then get away with the land,” said a source in the HMC.

The district administration officials impressed upon the HMC’s municipal commissioner at a recently held meeting that the terminal was posing a serious threat to the prison’s security and needed to be shifted somewhere else.

The land in question had been selected for the bus terminal project after then taluka city council unanimously passed a resolution for it in 2002 and subsequently Sindh government approved the plan. No one from jail authorities had made any claim to the land at that time.

Since then the taluka municipal administration (TMA) of city has been holding its bazaar for sacrificial animals on the land.

The terminal envisaged to house all stands of buses, minibuses, vans and coaches, which currently set up in different locations, including Qasim chowk, General Bus Stand, Hali Road, Sarfaraz Colony etc.

The TMA had awarded the terminal contract to M/S Zulfikar Builders who had offered Rs21 million donation to the TMA besides Rs6.6 million annual rent but the contractor failed to abide by the agreement and the TMA took back possession of the site in 2002 after revoking the agreement.

Nine years later in 2011, the jail administration occupied the land through jail police and fixed a board near it, which claimed it to be jail property.

The jail administration put forth the argument that the land used to be a jail garden and the jail had been paying its ‘abiyana’ (water tax) to the irrigation department in the past. But it failed to buttress its claim with proof in the record of rights of the land.

A chronological statement of facts submitted by Mukhtiarkar (revenue) and city survey officer to the Sindh High Court clearly mentions that it is City Survey (CS) No 2 and 3 of ward-A which is in the record of rights by the name of central prison Hyderabad.

The report was prepared after the SHC ordered demarcation of the site on May 26, 2011. It said: “Jail official mentioned that revenue survey numbers 7 to 13 and 15, 17 and 18 were under cultivable possession of jail department as per receipt of abiyana paid to irrigation”.

The controversy was triggered in Oct 2011 after the prison superintendent made a claim, suggesting the land belonged to the jail, before the SHC during hearing of a petition about prisons’ infrastructure.

An official at the HMC land department said that mala fide intent of prison administration was quite evident. “It didn’t comply with decisions taken in a meeting chaired by the district coordination officer on Nov 2, 2011 to settle this controversy. The meeting had decided that possession of land was to remain with the district government till high court passed a final order.

“But the jail administration didn’t withdraw their force from the land and we were restrained from holding sacrificial animals’ bazaar on it,” he added.

Hyderabad divisional commissioner, Jamal Mustafa Syed, said the terminal posed a threat to the prison’s security. “We can decide title of land if it belongs to HMC then we will ask the corporation to raise a boundary wall around it,” he said.

He said the land’s title would remain unchanged and disagreed with the view that the action to get the site vacated would only strengthen the jail’s claim over the land.

Interestingly, while the prison administration has raised objections to the building of a sky-crapper in front of the jail, it has itself erected a multi-storey building opposite its main entrance.

HMC municipal commissioner, Zahid Hussain Khaimtio, said that HMC had decided to move high court to protect its property. “HMC Administrator Barkat Rizvi has approved filing the case,” he said, adding the administration should follow lawful procedure if it needed the corporation’s land for some purpose.

Prison chief Pir Shabbir Jan Sarhandi insisted the land was jail’s property. British rulers, he added, had purchased it from Veesar community in 1885 and there used to a prison garden on this tract which was destroyed over the time.

He claimed that HMC officials got an entry made in the city survey number in connivance with revenue officials by showing a katchi abadi on the land. The revenue survey numbers later became city survey numbers.

“A new boundary wall will be erected around our [HMC’s stand] land to keep it within jail’s precincts and protect it from land-grabbers,” he said.

He admitted that a five-storey building was being built in front of the prison’s main entrance for jail staff and did not reply to the question how this piece of land being claimed by the jail was not entered in revenue record when the jail’s premises (city survey No 2 and 3) were already there.