LAND holds a big charm in Pakistan’s feudal culture and is a big cause of disputes and crime too. Naturally, the prime land of Islamabad invites more lustful eyes and fights.

Early this month, the city’s MNA Tariq Fazal Chaudhry of PML-N took up the issue with the Inspector General of Police when the Bhara Kahu police refused to entertain the complaint of his six rural constituents that Bahria Town developers had grabbed their 160 kanals of land in Phoolgran village. Bahria Town, owned by the property tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain, had grabbed land in Phoolgran, with the help of police, for its Golf City project in the area, alleged the opposition MNA.

“I met the Inspector General of Police once, and the Senior Superintendent of Police twice, to seek action against the policemen and get the lands of the villagers vacated from the possession of Bahria Town,” he told Dawn.

“The response of the IGP was very good,” he said, adding the officer directed the Bhara Kahu police to register a case against  those involve in land grabbing and take action against the policemen helping the developer in the illegal act, with the warning that those who continued with the practice would be suspended, the MNA added.

Later the MNA met the SSP twice. He too assured action, he said. However, Station House Officer of Bhara Kahu police, Chaudhry Nazir, when contacted, said the complaints about land grabbing by Bahria Town were received but no case registered because they all were baseless allegations. Neither the Bahria Town was grabbing land nor the police were helping it in this regard, he said.

Efforts to get comments of the IGP and the SSP did not succeed. A call made to Bahria Town office was answered by Col. (retired) Khalid who first confirmed that he was the project manager of Golf City. But when told the purpose of the call he said he dealt with the environment issues and not land issues.

Public relations officer Nadia promised on Friday to give Bahria Town's response the next day. But the next day she said she did not attend office on Saturday and forgot to talk to the concerned officer for the company's version.

It is not the first time that Bahria Town is being accused of land grabbing. In 2009, the then District and Sessions Judge of Islamabad Mazhar Minhas had submitted a scathing report after an inquiry into the doings of Bahria Town. It found Islamabad police completely under the influence of its owner Malik Riaz Hussain, with some police officers acting like his personal servants and playing with the liberties of innocent people by involving them in false and baseless cases.

Likewise, Mohammad Fayaz of Mira Bhagwal also lost his 45 kanals of land to a former councillor of the area.

Mr Fayaz told Dawn that he had lodged a complaint with the Bhara Kahu police to get a criminal case registered against the councillor but did not get any response.

“When I met some senior police officers, they assured me that action would be taken against the accused and his land would be retrieved.

However, nothing was done against him.”

He alleged that the former councillor was involved in other land grabbing cases at the behest of an influential person for developing housing societies. Neither the villagers are getting justice nor they are paid against their properties.

The former councillor is grabbing lands using his private force backed by the police, he alleged.

Some years back, a former SHO of Bhara Kahu was booked in an attempted murder case over a dispute involving a 175-kanal land at Phulgran. Later, the investigations found that the complainant - property dealer Safiullah Abbasi - had made self-inflicted wounds to implicate the SHO in the case after failing to grab a piece of land belonging to an air force officer.

It may be noted that Islamabad has a history of land grabbing dating back to pre-partition era. In the 1940s, nine members of a family were burnt alive by their rivals in Alipur Farash over land dispute.

Similarly, Nawaz Khokhar, a property dealer and his cousin Abdul Rasheed, of Alipur Farash, have decade-long dispute over 10 kanals of land which has claimed six lives.

Some officers in the Islamabad police agree that it is not for nothing that the force earns such ire. Honest police officers shun postings in rural areas for fear of being forced to overlook if not be part of such dirty works, they say. There are police officers who are in the property business, or in the pay of property tycoons or mafias, according to them.