KARACHI, Feb 20: The Awami Ittehad Welfare Committee (AIWC) and the Save Lines Area Committee on Thursday announced that they would observe a black day on Friday to protest against their eviction from Lines Area

A meeting of the AIWC with Haji Liaquat Hussain in the chair held on Thursday expressed resentment against “the corrupt officers of the Lines Area Project who want to throw us into the Korangi Industrial Area 35 kilometres away from here.”

Haji Liaquat said: “Since Lines Area is the focal point for all other posh localities such as Saddar, Tariq Road, Shahrae Faisal and M. A. Jinnah Road, the corrupt officers and the land mafia have set their eyes on this land and conspired to throw us away for their designs.”

He claimed that the residents of Lines Area had already paid the price of the land as far back as 1981 by depositing dues in the Allied Bank and were now the legal owners. He said it was deplorable that the development works in the area were still incomplete as the bureaucracy had usurped thousands of plots in the name of development and embezzled billions of rupees meant for road construction in collusion with the contractors.

“A plot of 45 sq yards costs Rs400,000 in Lines Area, whereas the cost of a plot measuring 120 sq yds is merely Rs40,000. But we are being given B & C category plots whose price is not more than Rs25,000. The value of our built houses averages Rs400,000, which means we would be suffering a loss of Rs800,000; and in exchange we would be given Rs40,000 only, which is a gross injustice,” he said.—PPI