GILGIT, Nov 17: About 128 families whose land was taken over in 1948 for an airport project are still waiting for compensation. Some of the affected people told Dawn that 12 of the 128 families had been rendered homeless and they had not been paid a single rupee yet.

They claimed that 415 kanals of land of the affected families had been taken over by the Northern Areas administration on assurances that the affected people would either be paid compensation or provided alternative land.

They said that in 1990 the federal ombudsman had held that the land of the complainants had been requisitioned for construction of an airstrip in 1947-48 and they were paid only Rs80 per kanal with the promise of allotment of Khalisa land (crown land) at Pari.

The ombudsman had urged implementation of the 1987 decision of a former ombudsman directing the Northern Areas administration to provide alternative land or compensation.