June 13, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 08, 1429

KHANEWAL: A Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR) team has cancelled allotment of government-owned 344 acres illegally allotted to various people with the connivance of Colony Branch officials.

The team, which probed into the scam in the district and left for Lahore a few days ago, also issued notices to five colony branch officials, including Head Vernacular Clerk Malik Qasim, Colony Clerk Akbar Lodhi and Muhammad Shakeel, for their alleged involvement in the scam.

Sources claimed that the government had taken over the possession of the land in Khanewal, Kabirwala and Mianchannu tehsils after the allotment was cancelled. Sources said the illegal allotted land includes 1,300 kanals in Khanewal and 1,454 kanals in Kabirwala and Mianchannu tehsils.

Sources added the BoR team was likely to order the registration of cases against the officials involved in the scam.

Khanewal District Coordination Officer Qazi Ashfaq told Dawn the BoR team had probed into the scam and prepared reports for further action.

“I don’t know what the BoR is up to now,” he said. The revenue executive district officer was not available for comment.

RAID: The Agriculture Department in a raid confiscated a huge cache of smuggled pesticides from a factory in Jahanian, 30 km from Khanewal. The department was tipped off about the smuggled pesticides in a factory in Jahanian on which agriculture and police officials confiscated the pesticides stored in the factory.