ISLAMABAD: Wanted by the Lahore police in more than 70 land grabbing and terrorism cases, a suspected land grabber, after remaining underground for weeks, surfaced in a dramatic way on the Supreme Court premises on Monday and was arrested.

Malik Mansha Khokhar alias Mansha Bomb claimed to have come to the apex court with his lawyer Rana Liaquat Hayat to meet Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar and seek protective bail.

The suspect waited for hours in the courtroom before he was taken into custody by the Secretariat police in the evening, as the CJP did not take up his case. A senior police official said that they had approached police to hand over his custody to them as a number of cases were registered against him at various police stations in Lahore.

The official said Mansha was booked at Johar Town, Township and several other police stations in Lahore on charges of land grabbing and terrorism. He said Lahore’s Chung Police SHO would arrive at Islamabad on Tuesday (today) to take Mansha into his custody.

“Mansha will be produced in the court of area magistrate on Tuesday (today), where the SHO [of] Chung, Lahore, will request for his transit remand to shift him to Lahore,” the police official explained.

Another police officer told Dawn that before the arrest, Mansha remained in the Courtroom 1 with his counsel. He said the chief justice called senior officers of the police in his chamber and asked them to get the courtroom vacated.

Talking to reporters, Mansha stated that he inherited lands from his father and owned a property business. “I have come to the court in hiding so that I can surrender and seek justice as police had registered forged cases against me,” he stated. Refuting the charges of land grabbing, he claimed that he had inherited huge lands from his father. He also alleged that he had been booked on “political grounds” by the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government, because his son was affiliated to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

Showing displeasure over calling him Mansha Bomb, he alleged that the police had given him this name.

“I am a landlord and property dealer by profession and [have] nothing to do with land grabbing,” he stated, adding that the action to demolish buildings constructed on his lands in Lahore had been taken due to ‘non-confirming use’. He denied that the PTI government took the action over the issue of land grabbing.

Last month the Supreme Court had taken up a petition of an overseas Pakistani, Mahmood Asharaf, who alleged that Mansha had grabbed his property but police were reluctant to arrest him.

A two-member bench of the SC at its Lahore registry on Sept 30 reprimanded PTI MNA Malik Karamat Khokhar and MPA Nadeem Abbas Bara for influencing the Punjab police in the land grabbing investigation.

During the proceedings, DIG Shahzad Akber of Punjab police told the apex court that Mansha along with his sons was involved in more than 70 land grabbing cases and that he was part of a land mafia group. The officer said the police were trying their best to locate the whereabouts of Mansha with the help of intelligence agencies and they had also conducted a raid in Sargodha to arrest him.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2018