SAHIWAL, Sept 10: Demolition of around 100 or so houses in suburban Bhutto Nagar locality on Monday has become a tug of war among district administration, tahsil nazim and local Pakistan People’s Party office-bearers and lately the Punjab governor has also intervened and ordered an inquiry into the incident.

On Tuesday, the Fatehsher police booked the Sahiwal tehsil nazim, naib nazim and their 50 supporters on a complaint lodged by local tehsildar, who along with revenue deputy district officer (DDO), was supervising the demolition operation, for obstructing lawful discharge of their official duties. No arrest, however, has been made as yet.

Several revenue and police officials, headed by Sahiwal Tehsildar Raja Amir Masood and Revenue DDO Amin Awaisi, launched an operation to get vacated state land allegedly occupied by locals in Bhutto Nagar locality on Monday afternoon.

The revenue department blamed residents of having occupied the state land without allotment by the TMA.

On the other hand, residents admitted that though they had no proprietary rights, they were staying there from 1985.

They claimed they have launched a legal process involving the tehsil nazim and the Katchi Abadies director-general for transfer of land’s ownership to them.

They also claimed that the locality had been declared a katchi abadi by the director-general through letter No.10-3/2001, dated Sept 30, 2002.

Around 30 or so residents of this katchi abadi also obtained a stay order from a local civil judge against revenue district officer on June 3, 2006, preventing him from launching any kind of demolition operation.

During Monday’s operation, around 100 mud houses had been demolished when Tehsil Nazim Umer Ishaq flanked by Naib Tehsil Nazim Chaudhry Anwarul Haq and their 50 or so supporters and a local PPP MPA, Hafeez Akhtar, along with party’s city chapter office-bearer reached there and allegedly obstructed the operation. The presence of local government representatives instigated the already charged residents and they had an argument with the officials, followed by a scuffle.

Eyewitnesses said that both tehsil nazim and his deputy reached the spot when operation had almost been executed.

But, the tehsildar claimed that both the nazims had instigated the residents which resulted in the ensuing scuffle.

Tehsildar Amir later went to Fatehsher police station and lodged a case against the thesil nazim, naib nazim and their supporters under Sections 353/186, 506, 148/207 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Sections 6/7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

According to the FIR, katchi abadi residents resorted to firing gunshots and pelting stones on the officials.

However, eyewitnesses claimed that not even a single shot was fired during the whole operation.

After registration of the case against nazim, MPA Hafeez met the district coordination officer (DCO) and demanded that his name be included in the FIR as he was also present at the spot.

The situation got another twist when a PPP delegation consisting of MPA Hafeez and PPP city chapter president Zaki Chaudhry met Governor Salman Taseer on Wednesday afternoon and sought his intervention.

The governor formed a committee consisting of officials, including the inspector general of police, to further probe into the matter.

Later in the evening, PPP local leaders gathered at Zaki’s residence here and accused DCO Muhammad Khan Khichi for creating the mess.

They said that no operation could be launched without DCO’s permission and demolishing the houses of the residents of a declared katchi abadi was injustice with them as their case was already under processing.

Without naming anyone, Zaki blamed that the local district administration was operating on what he called politically motivated instructions of a single man, as the area had been a hub of PPP supporters.

"The PPP is the party of the poor and by demolishing a Katchiabadi, the Punjab government has given first ‘gift’ to Sahiwal district," Dr Azhar Kahloo, PPP youth wing leader, later told reporters.

Shafiq Langah, PPP city general-secretary, and other leaders were also present.