PESHAWAR, Oct 1: The authorities on Tuesday started razing the illegal structures in the Cantonment Board limits.

A large number of army, Frontier Constabulary and police force was deployed to tackle any untoward incident.

There was no protest from the stakeholders as the Sept 30 deadline set by the authorities was over.

The provincial government had started the anti-encroachment drive in the first week of July to widen the roads and rectify the faulty drainage, electricity, telephone and Sui gas lines.

The Cantonment Board had earlier set Sept 7 deadline for the demolition of illegal shops and houses, which had been occupied by the people for the last 50 years.

Later, the representatives of the business community met with NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah to apprise him of their grievances regarding the proposed drive. The governor, however, asked them to cooperate in order to restore the past glory of the city.

Subsequently, Sept 30 deadline was set to enable the shopkeepers to remove the illegal structures and avoid the demolition by bulldozers. Many shopkeepers and house owners removed the illegal structures and saved their property from being totally ruined.

“We have valid documents of the ownerships of these properties but the officials have resorted to use of force,” said a shopkeeper at the Saddar Road. He claimed that they had been paying thousands of rupees as temporary ground rent (TGR) to the officials from the past several decades but the government was adamant to not pay any heed to the stakeholders.

The officials argue that the properties had been illegally occupied which shrunk the city roads and damaged the drainage system to a great deal.

According to the Cantonment Board rules, the TGR agreement could be terminated within 24 hours in case the land was required by the government, said the officials, adding that all the shopkeepers were required to surrender 4 to 5 feet of the land.

The shopkeepers also lamented the operation at the time when the Eid shopping was gaining momentum. They said that the government should have given them three more months to trim their structures according to the markings by the Cantonment Board officials.

Some of the buildings, the shopkeepers claimed, were 100-year-old but the officials did not even bothered to see the documents and began the demolition.

There was a curfew like situation in the Saddar bazaar as the law-enforcement personnel were deployed at all the entry and exit points. The shopkeepers also regretted the action saying that they suffered greater losses due to the drive and asked the government to give them some more time to hire labours and demolish the illegal structures in a way to save themselves from maximum losses.

“We would harass nobody but appeal to all to cooperate with the government in order to make Peshawar a neat and clean city,” said an official. He said that a similar drive would start at Shoba Bazaar and Shami Road soon.