Rangers personnel reportedly paid a visit to the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA)’s Head Office on Monday (June 15, 2015) and had a meeting with the SBCA chief to seek details on major real estate-related issues, such as illegal occupation of land, unlawful construction and encroachments.
Televisions channels also highlighted the issue and aired clippings of the Rangers’ visit to the SBCA’s Head Office. According to a news source, the meeting was about the alleged involvement of the SBCA officials in land-grabbing and the actions taken by the authorities concerned in this regard.
A senior official confirmed to reporters that the issue of ‘China-cutting’ was also discussed in the meeting. Land carved out illegally from amenity plots to use for residential purposes is colloquially referred to as China-cutting.
SBCA sources also told reporters that Rangers officials would visit the SBCA Head Office once again for a follow-up, however, the agenda of this future meeting was not shared.
Seemingly, the paramilitary forces are tightening the noose around the land mafia and Monday’s action was not a complete surprise, as the security forces had already hinted at extending their actions to all illegal activities in the city that are used to support gangs and their operations in Karachi.
Rangers also disclosed that the people involved in illegal activities were generating Rs 230 billion annually through land-grabbing, illegal water supply, extortion and smuggling of Iranian oil.
Land-grabbing and China-cutting are the major issues of Karachi and now that the paramilitary forces are seeking to unveil the faces behind these illegal activities, we should expect to see major developments in this regard.
The victims of land-grabbing and China-cutting must have felt a bit relieved after the action taken by Rangers. I leave this discussion open for our readers. Please share your views on the topic in the comments section below.
Related News
Mr 10% is very worried and threatning the forces to stop taking action against him and his best friends.
We all know what these Leeches are doing to us and our country, still we go Vote them / Support them.
Land grabbing is a viral disease common in lot of lawmakers and their near ones. They are there, in almost all small and large cities. Unfortunately and city administration and local politicians are fully involved in it. Their greed has no limit .
Only remedy is tough laws and an iron hand to implement these. Land records must be computerized and made accessible to general public.
Why Eden Housing blog posted on 09-06-15 is no more there??????
I agree with you, land grabbing and China cutting is going on unabated in Karachi for years. But the chances of relief are slim when authorities who are taking action against others , are doing the same in their domain. In some scheme of askari in Karachi, an amenity plot has been converted to some blocks of apartments and sold to civilians indirectly at exorbitant market price. Another two green areas besides blocks of aparyments are under construction to become apartment blocks. The housing department’s reply to any objection of residents is, “Non of your business, it is all approved by GHQ, if you have a problem with it, sell your property and go somewhere else”. This reply is not much different from those of mafias involved in China cutting but the department they refer to, if they are right, means there is no hope of any respite. China cutting has started in askari only after it was predominantly populated by civilians.