10 booked after Forest Dept team taken hostage in Benazirabad

Following directives from the Supreme Court (SC), Forest Department Shaheed Benazirabad has swung into action and registered a case against 10 persons for occupying the Kandah Bailey forest land, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Thursday. 

Police say the suspects, who are occupying government land spreading over hundreds of acres, took the Forest Department team hostage at gunpoint when it went to get the land back from their possession which led to the registration of a case against them.   

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court had ordered the Sindh Board of Revenue to ensure that all encroached lands, including that of irrigation and forest departments, were recovered within a month.

Hearing the application about computerization of revenue record in Sindh, the SC’s three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed, observed that despite computerization of land record, dozens of cases were filed daily over fake documentation of properties.

The court observed that officials of the Revenue department were involved in forging land documents by keeping parallel records. CJP Gulzar Ahmed observed that removal of encroachments from government lands was the responsibility of the Revenue department and said the whole of Karachi had been developed on encroached government land.

The court observed that high rises had been constructed on encroached government lands at the Super Highway ahead of the University Road where boundary walls had been raised by encroachers.