MANSEHRA: The chief municipal officer (CMO), Mansehra, has asked the police to register FIRs against 168 people for constructing markets, shops and houses in jurisdiction of the municipal committee without prior approval and in violation of the building code.

In an official letter addressed to the deputy superintendent of police, CMO Danish Iqbal said that the municipal committee had served notices on landowners not to go for construction without approval of the map, but they ignored notices and constructed the buildings.

“FIRs should immediately be registered against people mentioned in the list so that legal action could be taken against them. Because of the unapproved constructions public would suffer,” it said.

The CMO said that those who violated the building code had also caused a great financial loss to the exchequer as they did not deposit the fee fixed for approval of maps.

CMO wants FIRs registered against 168 people

Meanwhile, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has asked the deputy commissioner and district police office, Mansehra, to act in accordance with the Right to Information Act so that people could enjoy its benefits.

The DC was asked to ensure registration of death and birth in one day after application had been received. “As domicile certificate is essential for admission to colleges it should be issued within seven days of the application,” said the letter.

DEMOCRATIC RIGHT: Tehreek-i-Subah Hazara (TSH) convener Mushtaq Khan has said that sit-in protest in the federal capital is the democratic right of both Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek. However, he asked the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) to remain neutral in the current situation.

“We support both Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri for their struggle to make the country a real democratic and welfare state, but the lawyers’ bodies should not involve themselves in this issue,” he said while speaking at a press conference here on Thursday.

He said that every political party had its own lawyers’ wing and they could support their parties, but the bodies such as SCBA, which was the symbol of lawyers’ unity, should keep away from them,” he said.

Mr Mushtaq, who also remained the president of Mansehra District Bar Association, said that some groups and families had been ruling the county since its inception and if the current sit-ins succeeded then nobody would dare to rig general elections in future. The TSH convener said that the SCBA and PBC should adopt a neutral approach on issues such as sit-ins by political parties.

Supporting the PTI and PAT’s sit-ins in Islamabad, he said that the country needed a true democracy where a common man could play an active role in the politics.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2014