KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that the lease of 70 villages of District Malir has been cancelled on legal grounds and now a fresh survey would be conducted to regularise the genuine villages.

"This exercise has been done to get rid of land grabbers who had grabbed government land in the name of villages."

A statement issued from the CM House on Saturday said that the residents of genuine villages of District Malir have no need to worry.

"We would conduct a fresh survey to regularise the genuine villages," the chief minister said and added that the lawful villagers' would not be deprived of their right.

Shah said that under the Urban Villages Regularisation law of 2008 the villages which existed before or up to year 2000 qualify to be regularised.

In 2012 some 70 villages of District Malir were regularised without fulfilling legal requirements.

The handout read that before regularisation of a village its complete survey needs to be conducted to ascertain the area of the village, number of people living there, houses, mosques and even industrial units, if any, located there and the year when it was established.

But in this case, these formalities were not met that is why their legularisation was withdrawn, it added.

The chief minister, in his statement, communicated that he would direct Board of Revenue to conduct survey of each and every village very soon.

"The villages which existed before or up to year 2000 would be regularised," he said.

"I'm here to protect the genuine rights of our people. I would not allow anyone to deprive a legitimate villager from his right but would never allow any land grabber to usurp government land," the chief minister was quoted as saying.