LAHORE, July 10: The Multan Road Rehabilitation and Remodelling Project management is allegedly issuing unlawful (verbal) orders to some of the residents to vacate their houses to facilitate construction of a link road from Kharak Nala to Maraghzar Colony and motorway, it is learnt.

The inhabitants having the legal documents to prove their ownership have said the orders are illegal and a source of mental torture for them.

They told Dawn that the project management had also refused them any compensation or alternative land/house despite thefact that it had seen their property ownership documents.

“My father had constructed this abode about 60 years ago on a five-marla plot. I am residing in this house along with my aged mother and other members of the family. The project officials about a month ago marked my house together with some other places to be vacated for the widening and improvement of the link road along Kharak drain,” Mian Muhammad Nadeem, a local journalist, told this reporter.

He said after receiving the verbal orders from the project surveyors he contacted a senior project official, Col Ahmad Saeed who informed him that the land bearing Khasra No 481 and 482 had already been acquired by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) and the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) in 1976.

He said he subsequently contacted Kharak patwar circle office to verify the claim. “During scrutiny of revenue record it was revealed that though the LDA had acquired the land bearing Khasra No 481, 482 and others in 1981 to include it in the acquired plan of Sabzazar scheme, it neither actually included it in its plan nor did it compensate the house owners at any stage,” Nadeem said.

He said after going through the revenue record he also got checked the LDA record according to which the authority had acquired only a piece of land measuring 15 marlas out of five kanal and six marla land under Khasra No 481 at Kharak Nala locality.

The acquired 15-marla land by the LDA was owned by Abdul Razzaq and Ms Bushra Rahat in 1981 and they received compensation after they surrendered this to the LDA. “But my father Muhammad Sharif (late) got registered his property documents in 1976 and he never received any order from the government to vacate the house in 1981 or later,” he added.

He said he was paying visits to the LDA, the revenue department and the Multan Road project office to get compensation but to no avail.

He also alleged that PML-N MPA Mehr Ishtiaq was pressurising the project officials to vacate the houses situated on right side of Kharak Nala.

“Actually he is saving the houses of his relatives/voters residing on left side of the drain,” he alleged.

He said the project officials had also blocked the passages leading to their houses by digging out the land and filling it with water.

Muhammad Ashfaq Qaisar, a house owner at Kharak stop, told Dawn that the officials were frequently asking him to vacate his five-marla house despite the fact he had showed them his ownership documents. “We investigated the matter by getting the entire revenue and LDA record that proved our ownership.

“The record shows that my house/land doesn’t fall in that piece of land acquired by the government in the past,” he said.

Qaisar said he had briefed the officials on the legal position of his house by showing them documents but they rejected his claim.

Mushtaq Ahmad, son-in-law of Rashid Chaudhry who owns a five-marla house, said the officials were not even bothering to pay compensation. “They neither issued any notice nor have they offered compensation to us. They are just issuing verbalorders to vacate the house owned by my father-in-law,” he added.

The residents have appealed to Lahore High Court Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry to immediately take suo motu notice of illegal vacation orders.

Col Saeed, while responding to contact by this reporter, said he was looking into the issue by having meetings with the LDA and other authorities concerned. “The project management has marked the houses to be vacated and will pay compensation to the house owners if their claims prove to be genuine,” he claimed.

He said anyone facing any problem should come to him for redress of grievance.

MPA Mehr Ishtiaq denied the allegations levelled by the complainant, Mian Nadeem.

“The land had been acquired by Wasa and if someone is facing problems in receiving compensation he should contact him or the officials concerned,” he said.