It seems that city bosses are trying to hush up the land scam unearthed recently in Islamabad in order to save the skins of some big names allegedly involved in it.

Capital Development Authority (CDA) director land Waseem Shamshad has been made a scapegoat apparently to save those who benefited from the illegal allotment of over 4,000 plots in Kuri model village and 13 agro-farms located at Murree Road and Chak Shehzad schemes.

The award was announced to acquire land from the landholders for development of the model village. Under the compensation package, cash was to be paid to the owners of the land and those who had built-up property were to get plots in the proposed model village. The fraud was committed by including hundreds of fake landowners in the compensation list.

It has been learnt that efforts are underway to hush up the issue to protect the bigwigs who were made so-called 'supervisors' on the civic body.

It is unbelievable that the fraud was committed by a single person, as for the allotment of plots the approval of many senior officials is required.

The stage starts from the award of land which is announced by the deputy commissioner CDA on the basis of a survey report prepared by the land directorate. After the announcement of the award, the matter is sent to the CDA board for approval.

Once the award of land is approved by the board, it is sent to the plot allotment committee, comprising some members of the board, for further approval. From here it is again sent to the director land for allotment and issuance of allotment letters to those whose names are included in the list.

No one can rule out the possibility of political involvement in the whole episode but it seems that the people in CDA have no courage to expose them.

The CDA chairman, Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, who had confirmed large scale corruption in allotment of hundreds of plots in Kuri model village and 13 ago-farms, ordered an inquiry not to ascertain the corruption but to know why the director land Waseem Shamshad, the main accused, had left the office for two days without intimation and handing over the record of controversial allotments.

Newly-appointed member environment was tasked to find out why Mr Shamshad did not hand over the document to his successor Waqar Ahmed Khan. Later, member estate S.M. Farooqui was also included in the committee.

Sources said the CDA bosses were trying to hush up the scam, as some 'political and non-political figures' besides senior officials of the civic body were allegedly involved in it.

The director land has also declared that whatever he did was with the approval of the competent authority. “I alone could not do anything as I was working only as a postman to implement the decision of the high-ups,” he said.

Mr Shamshad had reportedly gone underground after he was transferred to another directorate by the CDA chairman last week. However, he reported to the administration wing of the CDA on Tuesday. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has also started investigation to find out the magnitude of the fraud.

The intention to hash up the issue was evident in the CDA board meeting held on Wednesday when the issue was discussed in a very 'light mood'.

“Nobody discussed why such a mass scale corruption was committed and how people involved in the scam would be punished,” said a senior official who attended the meeting.

Some questions were raised during the meeting as how such a scam could be prevented in future.

One of the officials told the meeting that there should not be any delay in acquisition of land and award of the built-up property while acquiring any new sectors.

The present practice is that after announcing the award of land and even acquisition of land, the CDA does not announce the award of BuP; as a result, landholders sit on the acquired land making it impossible for the civic body to develop the sector.

The director land had said no allotment and compensation of any land be made without approval of the CDA board, an allotment committee and the signature of the chairman.

He was of the view that the award of Kuri village was announced by the authority's deputy commissioner followed by its approval by the CDA board.

Similarly, in the allotment of agro-farms, the decision was taken by the allotment committee comprising some members and senior officials of the CDA.

On the other hand, member estate S.M. Farooqi, who was the overall in charge of the land and survey wing, rejected the claim of Mr Shamshad that he had done nothing on his own and only followed the orders of his seniors.

“It is true that the award is announced by the DC and approved by the CDA board but the allotment is done by the director in his individual capacity,” he added. He said it was the duty of the director to ensure transparency in the allotment of plots.