THATTA: A former MNA belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party, Dr Abdul Wahid Soomro, on Saturday revealed that unscrupulous elements within the revenue department of Thatta shifted around 5,000 acres of the district’s land to Jamshoro’s record without the consent of the provincial government.

Sharing official documents, including maps and revenue records, with local journalists, Dr Soomro, who had held the portfolio of planning and development and jails in 1970-1974 during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government, claimed that the forgery had been committed by Thatta’s revenue officials in connivance with the directorate settlement, survey and land record.

“Some 5,000 acres of land carved out of Thatta’s territorial revenue boundaries [have been] moved into the revenue record of Jamshoro district,” he revealed.

“The motive behind transferring this huge area even without the consent of the provincial government was to benefit certain industry tycoons and minting millions of rupees through middlemen,” he said.

Showing official maps, Dr Soomro explained that the lands in question were located in two compact blocks — Khartoum Makan and Ghoghro Makan — of 7/1, Tapo Jhimpir, district Thatta, along the Nooriabad Industrial Estate.

He wondered how the settlement and survey authorities carried out block survey of the un-surveyed land of Kohistan’s hilly terrain without having obtained permission of the provincial authorities and without taking Survey of Pakistan on board.

He recalled the incidents of arson and violence triggered by the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, and said that taking advantage of the turmoil, unscrupulous officials of the revenue department took away most revenue records with them and since then, they had been fleecing people, mostly illiterate khatedars, of the district.

Dr Soomro urged the chief minister to entrust the task of corrective measures to some honest officials and take the Survey of Pakistan on board to save Thatta’s lands and also simple people from getting fleeced by forgers and land mafia.

He said he intended to take the matter to a court of law as well.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2021