November 19, 2007	Monday	Ziqa’ad 08, 1428

LAYYAH, Nov 18: A local cleric has occupied two kanals of precious state land in a housing colony apparently in collusion with the district nazim and housing and physical planning department officials after raising a boundary wall and plans to build a seminary over there.

As the cleric claims that the nazim and the housing officials facilitated him to start building the seminary on an empty plot, the nazim and housing officials, however, deny the allegations and say every possible step will be taken to eject the illegal occupant.

Sources say the housing department permitted the cleric to occupy the plot instead of auctioning it to the public after receiving verbal directives from the district nazim around a week ago.

According to the sources, housing department’s regional director Sheikh Nisar Ahmad visited Layyah last week when District Nazim Malik Ghulam Haider Thind called on him and urged him to ‘facilitate’ Maulana Abdul Kareem, the principal of Madressa Darul Aloom, being run in a mosque in the vicinity of the two-kanal plot in Housing Colony No II, to build a full-fledged seminary.

The sources claimed that the meeting proved fruitful and Maulana Kareem occupied the land quickly thereafter by constructing a boundary wall around the chunk of land now valuing around Rs4 million.

Talking to Dawn, Maulana Kareem claimed that the regional director of the housing department had given him an ‘opportunity’ to construct a madressa over there on the recommendation of the district nazim to ‘spread the cause of Islam’.

District Nazim Malik Ghulam Haider Thind, however, denied that he had given any written or verbal directives to the housing department to help the cleric occupy the plot. Moreover, he said that if the housing department requested the local administration to provide assistance to eject the illegal occupant, the district government would do the needful urgently. When contacted, Housing Regional Director Sheikh Nisar Ahmed maintained that he had issued directives to evict the cleric.

In a recent development, a housing and physical planning official has moved the DCO to provide security cover to their intended drive to get the plot vacated from the cleric.