KARACHI, Aug 1: The National Accountability Bureau on Wednesday fixed Sept 5 as the deadline for vacating the illegal occupation of lands of the forest department in Sindh. At a meeting held at the NAB’s Sindh headquarters here, with Director-General Major-Gen Mukhtar Ahmer in the chair, participants discussed the issues of illegal occupation of the state-owned lands in the province.

The meeting was attended, among others, by Additional IG Niaz Ahmed Siddiqui, the secretary for land utilisation, the secretary forests and other senior officials of the departments concerned.

A NAB spokesman said the meeting decided to get the forest land under illegal occupation vacated by Sept 5, 2007 and an operation clean-up would be launched on an emergency basis to accomplish the task.

He said the NAB DG asked the officials concerned, especially the police to take strict legal action against those who granted the lease of the land also against those getting the forest land on lease.

The officials were informed that the forest land could be used only for forestry and those who violated the rules would have to face legal action.

He said such land should be vacated forthwith and returned to the forest department so that it could start work on forest development.

The NAB DG, the spokesman said, called for strict action against officials showing negligence in the launch of an operation and those supporting the land grabbers. He said action should be taken without any discrimination.

Maj-Gen Mukhar asked officials of the forest department to take all steps to protect the forest land, and forestry be promoted to curb such occupations.

In a briefing on the occasion, the secretary for forests said that so far 6,000 acres of forest land had been retrieved from illegal occupants and efforts were on to get the remaining land retrieved.