ISLAMABAD: A local court on Saturday convicted two persons in a land grabbing case and awarded them five years imprisonment along with a fine of Rs1 million.

Following the court’s verdict, police arrested one of the convicts, Mohammad Afzal Khokhar. However, the other, Chaudhry Abdul Rehman, escaped before pronouncement of the verdict.

The court however ordered the senior superintendent of police (SSP) as well as station house officer (SHO) Koral to arrest Rehman and send him to the Adiala jail.

The complainant in the case, Ishtiaqul Salikeen, had initially nominated Imtiaz alias Taji Khokhar and Chaudhry Ali Akbar along with the above mentioned convicts in a decade-old case of grabbing 135 kanals. Their names were, however, deleted from the complaint after their demise.

One of the convicts arrested, other escapes from court

The complainant contended that Rehman and his accomplices asked him to sell his 135 kanals for his private housing society.

As per the complaint, Salikeen refused to sell his land and turned down their offer. However, they forcibly took possession of the land.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Abdul Ghafoor Kakar in March this year had ordered the deputy commissioner, inspector general and the SSP for the recovery of the land under the Land Dispossession Act 2005 from Rehman, adding the possession of the land be given to the complainant, who as per the court order was its actual owner.

The complainant contended that Rehman along with his accomplices forcibly took over possession of his 135 kanals and converted it into over 400 residential and commercial units and sold out to different buyers.

He said on the direction of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), the additional deputy commissioner revenue (ADCR) had appointed a commission to furnish demarcation of the land. The revenue officer in his report pointed out that “multiple high-rise commercial and residential buildings were constructed over there” and stressed the need for assistance of the Survey of Pakistan as the demarcation could not be possible by the revenue officials.

As per the order of ADSJ, the demarcation report was then submitted but the owners of the society objected that the ADCR was supposed to complete the job but it was done by a naib tehsildar.

The judge, on the other hand, was of the view that the land was demarcated in accordance with the directions of the Supreme Court. He directed the senior police officers and the district administration to give possession of the land to Salikeen from the “illegal occupation and possession of the respondents or any other illegal occupants.”

Rehman then filed an appeal against the order of the ADSJ in the IHC which is pending adjudication.

The ADSJ, hearing another complaint filed by the same complainant seeking criminal proceedings against Rehman and Khokhar, held that they had forcibly grabbed the land and convicted them under Illegal Dispossession Act.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2022