Observer Report Sialkot
Previously after demolishing ‘illegal’ structures at the Khokhar Palace in Lahore, the Punjab government on Sunday razed to the ground the offices of PML-N leader and former defence minister Khawaja Asif’s housing society in Sialkot.
The district administration and municipal corporation officials, backed by the police, demolished the structures of the housing society claiming that they were illegally built.
The authorities said the said land was reserved for a graveyard and parking but the housing society illegally built its four-storey offices on it necessitating an action from the government.
The operation against the housing society involved officers and staff of the district administration along with dozens of government vehicles and heavy machinery.
Sialkot Chief Corporation Officer Faisal said the offices of the housing society were built illegally deviating from the approved plans and the maps.
This is the second time in the last seven days that a high-profile anti-encroachment operation against the so-called ‘land mafia’ has been launched and at both occasions the ‘properties’ belonged to the PML-N leaders.
Former Mayor Sialkot Toheed Akhtrer termed the Sialkot operation ‘worst political victimization’. He alleged that the administration did not even allow them to pick up Rs632 million from the cash drawer of the housing society’s offices.
Reports of clashes between the policemen and the PML-N workers were also received from the scene. It is to be noted that Khawaja Asif is in NAB custody for over a month now in connection with a case regarding accumulating assets beyond known sources of income.
