LAHORE, March 2: Supreme Court Bar Association President Malik Muhammad Qayyum will sue the Lahore Development Authority for religious discrimination for its refusal to provide land to 24 families evicted from the FC College despite receiving prescribed price.

This he said while addressing a press conference along with Altogether Christian Association, London, representative Najam Dean, Human Rights Commission representative Yasir Khan Rokari, Pakistan National Christian League chief organiser Dr Yaqub Bhatti and secretary-general Priest Zafar Daniel here on Thursday.

The SCBA president said that former chief minister Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo had ordered allotment of three marla plots to the Christian families evicted from FC College in 1992 on April 4, 1994.

He said the Christian families had been issued allotment letters on Jan 15, 1996, and they had paid the prescribed price. Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi had also issued orders for allotment of land to the families in accordance with the directive of Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo, but LDA officials were not implementing it on the pretext that the Land Disposal Act promulgated on Dec 1, 1998, did not permit it.

Mr Qayyum said that denial of land allotment to these families was a clear case of religious discrimination because the former chief minister had ordered its allotment to them in 1994.

They could not be deprived of allotment of plots under the Land Development Act promulgated in 1998 even after payment of prescribed charges, he said.