LAND-GRABBING is a national problem, though perhaps the crime is particularly acute in dense urban environments.

While the state’s inability to keep a check on the activities of the land-grabbers is condemnable, even worse is officialdom’s inaction when it comes to apprehending criminals who threaten or even murder citizens who dare to raise their voice against the rampant practice.

Take the case of the late Orangi Pilot Project director Perween Rahman, who was cruelly murdered in Karachi as she was returning home from work in March 2013.

Also read: ‘Slain activist knew too much about land grabbing’

Despite the passage of over a year and a half, Ms Rahman’s killers have still not been brought to justice. It goes to the Supreme Court’s credit that the case is still being pursued and has not been lost in the legal maze, and that the court is pressuring the police to nab the culprits.

According to the testimony of a senior Karachi police officer in the apex court on Wednesday, the slain social activist was in possession of a map that detailed illegally occupied land in Karachi — land which had apparently been taken over with the help of political parties.

Following her murder, the police had been quick to point a finger at the banned TTP. Yet the fact is that in Karachi a dangerous mix of criminal gangs and political and religiously motivated militants are responsible for much of the city’s violence and lawlessness.

Of course, land-grabbing is amongst the most lucrative of illegal ventures that such elements thrive on. And anyone who has the courage to expose such criminality — as Perween Rahman did — does so while putting their life on the line.

In order to honour her memory and work and to show that the state does not tolerate the illegal occupation of public or private land, those responsible for the murder must be brought to justice.

In fact, the map that was discussed in the Supreme Court should be retrieved and made public, as should details of which political parties or their supporters are working with the land-grabbers.

This, naturally, will not be easy in a country where even state institutions are involved in encroaching upon land that is not lawfully theirs, while corrupt elements within government agencies are in cahoots with the land-grabbers.

Nevertheless, unless Perween Rahman’s killers are caught and punished, it will only embolden criminals and reinforce the impression that in Pakistan, the wretched of the earth and those who speak for them can be mowed down with impunity.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2014