ISLAMABAD, April 11: The owners of Punjab Oil Mills continue their illegal occupation of a public land in Kahuta Industrial Triangle despite the orders of the Capital Development Authority to vacate the land.

The Enforcement Directorate staff of the authority had demolished a big solid 7 feet high wall topped by a barbed wire fence encompassing an area measuring 30 x 600 feet of public land on February 28, 2003. But the mill owners quickly erected a barbed wire fence and blocked the view of the whole area once again. They even deputed some armed security guards to maintain their possession of the land.

Officials in the enforcement directorate told this correspondent that the mill owners had taken these ‘temporary’ measures to ‘protect the debris’ of the demolished wall only. They said early in March the mill owners had promised to remove the barbed wire fence and the haystack covering once they had ‘taken care of the debris’. However, the encroachment is still there. The officials said the encroachment will be removed as advised by the Chairman of the authority, Mir Laiq Shah, but were unable to give any time limit to this effect.

“We have demolished the solid encroachment. The mill owners sought some time to remove the debris voluntarily because it was their property. So, they were allowed to remove it by themselves,” the enforcement directorate officials said. But, they conceded that the owners were stretching it too far.

The officials said the barbed wire fence and haystack covering were also illegal and these would be removed. However, when an action would be taken against this new encroachment was not specified by the authority’s officials.