LAHORE: The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has booked PML-N leader and former federal minister Ghulam Dastagir Khan and four officials of the Punjab Highways Department for allegedly engineering the misplacement of government record of an encroached piece of state land.

According to an ACE spokesperson, Mr Dastagir, who is the father of MNA Khurram Dastgir Khan, and the highways officials misplaced the lease documents of the state land measuring two kanals 11 marlas worth a million rupees in Gujranwala. The land had been allegedly under illegal occupation of Dastagir and his brothers for long.

“Mr Dastagir had constructed an illegal filling station on state land. The precious state land is located on main GT Road originally belonging to the Punjab Highways Department. It was retrieved two years ago after the said petrol pump was demolished under the supervision of the then Gujranwala additional deputy commissioner (revenue) Kanwal Batool Naqvi,” he said.

Dastagir had claimed that they had got the filling station constructed after fulfilling legal formalities of lease agreement with the government.

“It has been established that Mr Dastagir in collusion with Mirza Shahid Nadeem, sub-divisional officer (SDO) of the highways department in Gujranwala, and three other officials got the record misplaced with mala-fide intention and thus caused a huge loss to the public exchequer,” the spokesperson said.

The ACE upon the recommendations of the deputy commissioner’s (DC) office on Friday registered a case against the owners of the filling station and four government officials for engineering the misplacement of record.

Our correspondent from Gujranwala adds: DC retired Lt Sohail Ashraf had submitted an application to the ACE director general alleging that former minister Ghulam Dastagir had allegedly grabbed the land with the connivance of the SDO and three record keepers 40 years ago and constructed a filling station on it.

During this period, Ghulam Dastgir did not pay any fee to the highways department. In 2018, the district administration demolished the petrol pump and started an inquiry, while the former minister got the lease record of the land disappeared, causing a loss of millions to the exchequer.

Dastagir and the highways officials also could not produce the record when the administration had sought it.

ACE officials told the media that teams had been established to arrest the suspects and they would be nabbed soon.

Ghulam Dastagir’s spokesman alleged that the government was instituting false cases against PML-N leaders for holding a successful Pakistan Democratic Movement gathering in Gujranwala.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2020