SARGODHA: Deputy Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha has constituted a four-member committee to probe the incident of fire in the record room of the revenue department.

The DC said the inquiry being conducted by Additional Deputy Commissioner Tariq Khan Niazi, the district emergency officer, colony assistant and tehsildar would be completed within a week. It is alleged that the revenue record of Khizarabad stud farm and land (of which cases are in the Anti-Corruption Establishment) has been destroyed during the fire that persisted for three days in the record room.

According to a brief history, the farm comprising 7,700-acre fertile land was owned by ex-premier of the United Punjab Malik Khizar Hayat Tiwana, who got allotted a stud farm against nominal price and earned millions of rupees.

The government had, through 1960 land reforms under MLR of 1972, acquired 7,700 acre from Tiwana and handed these over to the livestock department in 1976.

The farm is situated some 37 kilometres from here. In 1980, the then Punjab governor general, Sawar Khan, during his visit announced distribution of entire land among the landless tenants.

A development scheme “Establishment of Livestock Experiment Station Khizarabad” was planned to exploit resources for breeding and maintenance of Sahiwal cattle. But neither the land was distributed among the landless tenants nor did the livestock department show any development. It, in fact, paved the way for the Punjab government (PML-N’s previous stint) to dole out this fertile land and stud farm among the blue-eyed.

The fire incident has once again ignited the issue of illegal distribution of land and prompted the tenants and PTI leaders Mumtaz Ahmad Kahilon and Ansar Iqbal to allege that the ruling regime has set the record on fire.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2017