LAHORE, May 5: The Lahore Development Authority on Saturday requested the City District Government of Lahore’s revenue wing to submit record of the disputed land in Nasir Ganj village, falling under the jurisdiction of LDA-Avenue-1 housing scheme on Raiwind Road.

“As the Nasir Ganj landowners claim that their land (measuring seven-kanal) housing their dwellings doesn’t fall under the LDA Avenue-1 residential scheme, we are required to verify their claim by reviewing the revenue record. That’s why we have sought the record from the quarters concerned so that we may tally it with the record already available with us,” LDA Additional Director General (Headquarters) Ms Mariam Kayani told Dawn. She said the revenue department would hopefully submit the relevant record to the LDA management by Monday (tomorrow).

She said an LDA contractor had launched development work on the land (250 kanal) retrieved from illegal occupants during a day-long operation on May 3.

Meanwhile Nasir Ganj’s patwari Muhammad Ali told this reporter that he had visited the village on Saturday and met with the landowners Babar Ali and Haji Hameed. “During meeting they (landowners) claimed that the land (seven-kanal) housing their dwellings doesn’t fall in the award list of LDA Avenue-1. I have recorded their statement and will check the revenue record to verify their claim,” he said, adding that he would submit his report to his immediate boss.

Earlier, landowner Babar Ali claimed that Khasra numbers 12 and 13 (old) and 15 and 16 (new) separated this piece of land from the total acquired land. “Look we built our houses on this piece of land before the award of this residential scheme and how the LDA could claim this as part of the award list under the Land Acquisition Act,” he explained.

He reiterated that he and his entire family members would do or die if anyone from the government tried to enter the village to demolish our houses. “They have already caused us a huge financial damage by demolishing our outhouses/outhouses during the May 3 action. And now if they again tried entering the village, anything can happen,” he warned.

He said the officials had already snatched his and other landowners’ 250-kanal, the land for which he or any of his family member/owner had not received even a single penny to date from the LDA. “We will never accept the price of Rs400,000 per acre offered by the LDA in 2003 and will continue our struggle either to get it back or receive due compensation,” Ali said.

FINDINGS: Inquiry officer (DCO Noorul Amin Mengal appointed by Lahore Commissioner Jawad Rafique Malik to probe the allegation of thrashing of a woman protester allegedly by LDA ADG Ms Kayani during the LDA operation on May 3, declaring that the officer had acted in self-defense after she was mobbed by protesting women.

“According to a fact finding inquiry report I received from the DCO, it proved that Ms Kayani did this in self-defence. The report was prepared after viewing footages of some news channels that showed only the scene when Ms Kayani was slapping a woman. But they didn’t show or covered the act of those women, witnessed by several people, who kept pulling Ms Kayani’s shawl. So Ms Kayani did this in self-defence in order to save herself from the wrath of protesters,” Commissioner Mr Malik said while talking to Dawn.

He said besides this the inquiry report recommended adoption of some protocols or Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) by senior officials, mainly the women officials while carrying out such risky operations in the field. “I think such a work should be performed by the male official (deputy or assistant directors etc) rather than a female senior official directly,” he added. He said he had submitted the inquiry report to the CM on Saturday.

He said he was also probing on his own the matter related to award and history of the land acquired by the LDA for this particular scheme. He said the demand of the landowners regarding low price assessment of their land at the rate of Rs400,000 (per acre) seemed to be genuine. “So I will get the entire land in question reassessed according to the market value and will make efforts to enhance the rate after a through investigation,” Mr Malik added.