Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Thursday said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had been patronising land grabbers for political gains.
Addressing a press conference along Adviser to Prime Minister on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar, the minister said that recently around 10 land mafia gangs had been exposed in Punjab being backed the PML-N.
The land grabbers were using their influence not only in Punjab but also other parts of the country, the minister added. Chaudhry Fawad said that PML-N Vice President, Maryam Nawaz should feel embarrassed for backing the land mafias.
The minister said that due to these organized groups of ‘Qabza Mafia’ Pakistan was facing moral degradation in the world, adding that it were the same Khokhar Brothers who had signed the surety bond of Nawaz Sharif.
He said accountability was being done on two fronts – one against land grabbers in which more than land worth Rs 200 billion has been retrieved and the other one under the supervision of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in which around Rs 500 billion recovered from the corrupt elements.
The minister said the government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Inaf (PTI) under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan had taken concrete measures to bring back the laundered money from abroad.
Commenting on the Azmat Saeed Commission on Broadsheet scandal, the minister said that Terms of Reference (ToRs) of the commission has been decided and notification would be issued soon.
The minister said that PML-N had launched organized campaign on media and other platforms against the commission on Broadsheet scandal.
To a question, the minister said that PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Zardari and JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman were seeking National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). He said that the government was ready to give them NRO if they all returned the looted public money in the national exchequer.
Speaking on the occasion, Shahzad Akbar said the law enforcement agencies had so far retrieved state land worth around Rs 200 billion from illegal occupation of the influential personalities in Punjab.
He said about 80 kanal 4 marla commercial property valuing over Rs 3 billion was retrieved in the suburbs of Lahore. Khokhar brothers, he said, had got transferred about 206 kanals of state land worth Rs 1.5 billion in their names through fake deeds. It was the same group against whom the chief justice of Pakistan had ordered action two years ago.
He said the Khokhar brothers were served notices prior to the operation. They had got stay order, which was now vacated by the court. The land, which was now completely under the state possession, would be utilized for a public welfare project, he added.
The adviser said a petrol pump and CNG station built on the government land in the middle of Gujranwala city by Ghulam Dastgir Khan, father of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khurram Dastgir Khan, had been demolished and turned into a public park.
Similarly, 1,050 kanals of land was recovered in Kasur and 2,400 kanals held by another PML-N leader Daniyal Aziz in Sargodha, he added.
Likewise, he said, 5000 kanals of state land was retrieved from PML-N Senator Chaudhry Tanvir Khan in Rawalpindi. Moreover, around 27 kanals of commercial property that was rented out by the senator to a private school was also recovered. The advisor said 8 kanals 2 marla land encroached upon by Mian Floor Mills of PML-N MNA Mian Javed Latif, and 30 kanals and 16 marlas by Mian Paper and Boards Mill had also been recovered, besides demolishing illegal service stations and five shops built on state land in Sheikhupura. He said the state land worth around Rs 80 million, which was illegally sold by a housing society owned by PML-N leader Khawaja Asif had been also recovered. He said it was the PML-N leadership, which had always patronised the land mafia for their personal gains and now when the law was taking its due course against them they had come on the roads to save themselves from accountability.
