THATTA, Oct 6: An assistant commissioner, a DSP, a revenue official and a former deputy commissioner are in a long list of encroachers who have grabbed a six-acre plot in front of the land reserved for SZABIST on the National Highway near Gharo filter plant, it is reliably learnt on Saturday.Officials of the National Accountability Bureau and Anti-Corruption Establishment are investigating the encroachment of this land which belongs to the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST).

The officials disclosed on the condition of anonymity that the land-grabbers had managed to get forged ownership documents of 18 plots spread over six acres in connivance with revenue officials.

The list of direct and indirect encroachers includes an assistant commissioner, a DSP, a former deputy commissioner, a revenue official, SZABIST staffers and their relatives and a number of other people who claim to be legitimate owners of the plots and say it is their ancestral land, according to officials.

They told Dawn that an initial inquiry had revealed that nobody possessed the plot till a few weeks ago and it had been vacant, hence there was no question of ancestral land. NAB Director Ramesh Kumar visited the occupied land recently and recorded statements of villagers living in its vicinity.

They told the official that the land had been vacant and the concrete fixtures, high walls and iron gates had been erected there recently by encroachers.

The documents, including a village form II, obtained by the officials of NAB and Anti-Corruption Establishment carries names of direct beneficiaries as Peeru Brohi, Punhal, Ghulam Nabi Zardari, Hafeez, Karamudin Panhyar, Dost Mohammad Mangrio and a DSP of Gharo among others.

The form II carried signatures of then mukhtiarkar Jessa Ram and Tapedar Ibrahim Palijo who rejected their signatures as fictitious when intelligence officers probed them about the authenticity of the form. The officials have since been retired.

Nabi Bux Gorai, a tapedar, said that the SZABIST’s land measured about 5,300 acres which fell in two Dehs of Gharo taluka. It had been acquired in 1988 for the establishment of SZABIST’s academic institutions and other related buildings, he said.

He said that as per rules, the open and vacant land could not be claimed as ancestors’ land. The encroached piece of land was located in front of the land reserved for SZABIST and its ownership documents were forged because all encroachers were non locals, he said.

The intelligence officials said they were looking for actual hands behind the land-grab racket because, they feared, if the encroachers were not stopped they would swallow the entire land of SZABIST.

ACE Inspector Ghulam Mohammad Zardari said the ACE was investigating deeper into the land scam and recording statements of direct and indirect beneficiaries to bring facts to light.

Mirpur Sakhro’s Assistant Commissioner (revenue) Karam Din Parihar told Dawn that any structure found to have been raised illegally at the occupied piece of land would be pulled down. Further work at the site had been stopped on a directive of Thatta Deputy Commissioner Nawaz Sohu, he said.

He said that the DC had ordered an inquiry into the land scam during a recent meeting with director of survey and settlement, Hyderabad, project director of Goth Abad Scheme and other officials concerned.