ISLAMABAD: A group armed with batons and sticks attacked a village on the outskirts of the capital in order to occupy a graveyard and land around it.

Police said the incident occurred in Mehra Beir village. The area has been home to a land dispute between villagers and another group for the last year. Police said the villagers own 28 kanals adjacent to a graveyard that belonged to their ancestors.

A case has been registered against the attackers under Pakistan Penal Code sections 109, 148, 149, 337 and 427 with the Golra police in response to a complaint lodged by villager Shakir Nawaz.

Area has been home to an ongoing dispute between landowners, outside groups

The FIR said that the villagers had received a stay from the Islamabad High Court in their favour on April 4, after which a group of around 55 people armed with baton, iron rods and hockey sticks attempted to occupy their land.

Police and capital administration officials reached the site and informed the attackers of the court stay, but the group trespassed and occupied the villagers’ land and the graveyard.

The FIR said they also attacked and injured the villagers, threw rocks at officials and damaged people’s vehicles. Golra police told Dawn the attackers then left. No arrests have been made in the case so far.

They said the two sides had brawled in the past, which resulted in a couple of cases being registered against the group on separate charges.

Police said that a man and a few others had previously occupied graveyard land and built rooms there, where they started offering religious teaching to children brought from elsewhere. Last year, the man and the villagers also clashed over the land.

The man had used weapons to terrorist the villagers, police said, and a case was also registered against him in this regard. After the case, he sold the construction and land to someone else and fled, even though he did not own the land in the first place.

The new group built a place of worship there around a month ago, police said. The Capital Development Authority and capital administration demolished the structure because it was illegal and built on someone else’s land.

However, this group then asked the capital administration for permission to pray in the same place. In response, the chief commissioner allowed them to pray on the land on the condition that they do not build anything there.

The group came to the village for Friday prayers last month but were intercepted by the villagers. The police then intervened and diffused the situation, they said.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2019