KARACHI: The demarcation map of the Jinnah International Airport’s land was made several times in connivance with revenue and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) officials with mala fide intentions of encroachment, a Federal Investiga­tion Agency’s (FIA) investigation revealed on Monday.

The FIA also made a startling disclosure that the record of the summary containing the approval note of the then chief minister in 1992 was not available regarding the transaction of four acres of the land while a bogus summary was moved for regularising another five acres.

Besides, the land transactions were carried out by the officials concerned despite a complete ban on further transaction of the state land imposed by the Supreme Court in 2012, according to officials’ accounts and papers reviewed by Dawn.

Two FIRs have been registered by the FIA’s corporate crime circle about illegal allotment and occupation of CAA’s nine acres, and four suspects including three CAA officials and one private person have been arrested.

Over 30 suspects have been nominated in both cases including officials of the Board of Revenue, CAA, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners and private persons namely Haleem Siddiqi, Arslan Khalid, Khalid Yusufi, Mushtaq Ahmed and others.

‘Fabricated’ maps

The land acquisition process of the Karachi airport in Malir (formerly East) district was initiated in 1976, but it was allocated to the CAA in 1983, containing 78 acres of private persons and 209 acres of state land.

The land demarcation maps prepared in 1983, 1995, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2019 and 2019 revealed that the revenue officials with mala fide intentions shifted the boundaries of CAA’s land to pave the way for illegally creating new survey numbers and then relocating those numbers to usurp four acres.

Zareen Gul Durrani, the then estate officer at the Jinnah International Airport, Jahanzeb Khan and Mohammed Ali, the then senior surveyors at the airport, have signed the said fabricated demarcation maps and also issued a no-objection certificate without concurrence from the law officer and approval from the competent authority.

The FIA believes that 23 accused persons — including CAA, revenue officials, the then deputy commissioner Malir and others — seemed to have committed criminal misconduct to misappropriate government property.

About the alleged illegal occupation of five other acres lands of the airport, the FIA probe said that retired captain Haleem Siddiqui claimed that he had purchased the said land from Ayesha Mohammed Khan in 1993 for his company Epic Air Pvt. Ltd and the same was regularised by the land utilisation department.

FIA records reveal that Ms Ayesha purchased 62 acres of land in deh Narathar in district West Karachi, while the LU was given 84 acres in lieu of 62 acres.

However, the FIA said the record file of the LU showed that the ‘outward number’ did not appear in the summary for the Sindh’s chief minister submitted by late Ghulam Abbas Soomro, the then secretary LU, to this effect.

“The officers of the LU department confirmed in their statements that without any outward number, the summary seems to be fake/bogus/suspicious,” according to the FIA investigation.

The FIA believed that 11 accused, including officials and Haleem Siddiqui, in collusion, connivance and abetment with each other committed acts of criminal misconduct to misappropriate government property for wrongful gain.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2021