ISLAMABAD, July 29: The residents of Pind Sangrial and Siri Saral villages, located at Sector D-12, on Monday claimed that the CDA had failed to give adequate compensation to the landholders before trying to evict them.

The market rate for a one kanal plot in Sector D-12 is said to be around Rs4 million.

The villagers said the landholders were asked to accept compensation as low as Rs200 per kanal in some instances. They claimed that corrupt elements in the CDA, in collusion with property dealers, had doled out government funds to land mafia, whereas the actual landholders were not compensated.

The matter of compensation to the affected villagers was earlier being investigated by the defunct CDA’s Army Monitoring Team.

“The CDA has paid millions of rupees as compensation to its agents, but the actual landholders are still deprived of their right,” a local said.

Requesting anonymity, a villager said the situation took an ugly turn when CDA official Chaudhry Mohammad Ali threatened them to vacate the lands or face stern action. The threats were being hurled since the interior minister visited the area last week and directed the authorities to expedite development work in the sector.

According to the locals, the CDA and heavy police contingent arrived at the site at around 10am and tried to bulldoze the houses and destroy crops. On facing resistance from the villagers, the police opened fire which resulted in the death of Mistri Nawaz, aged 60.

Nawaz had settled in the area after buying a shop and a small landholding. The killing of the aged man enraged the villagers who retaliated in self defence, a local claimed.

However, the district administration and the police claimed that it were the villagers who first opened fire on the state functionaries.

The villagers said the police did not spare even the women and killed Razia Bibi. They said CDA director lands Shaista Gul had promised compensation for the destroyed crops, but even that was not given. The promises by the CDA officials were made while they were preparing for the visit of the interior minister to the site.

Questioning the violent police action, the villagers said the landholders were poor citizens and not terrorists.

Witnesses said the episode was mishandled by the CDA officials and the police, who, they claimed, had a history of opening fire on the citizens.

“If a proper inquiry is conducted into the incident it would transpire that the incumbent CDA director enforcement has a history of aggravating the crisis situations which inevitably leads the police to open fire and kill the citizens,” a villager said.

Alleging corruption and mismanagement in the CDA land directorate, the locals said compensation cases had been pending for years but to no avail.

The CDA has not implemented the decisions of the superior judiciary regarding award of compensation to the locals, documents shown to this reporter revealed.