LARKANA, Oct 9: Around 4000 acres out of 50,000 forest land had illegally been occupied in Larkana forest range allegedly by the influential in connivance with the revenue staff who are off and on found in the practice of tampering with the revenue record, highly placed sources in the forest department said.

The forest range of Larkana has 14 forests in its limits which include Madeji, Doso Dara, Sharifpur, Bahman, Aghani, Salhyani, New Abad, Amrot (kutcha and pucca), Shalani, Hassan Wahan (kutcha and pucca), Baggi, Gajidero, Tatree and Ghanghrko.

Majority of the forest land had been occupied in Dokri taluka, the sources said adding that forest lands were declared and reserved in 1878 and a stage arrived when it was surfaced that certain officials in the then Deputy Commissioner’s office had allotted the forest lands in total violation of the laws and rules.

Lately the former deputy commissioner of Larkana Muhammad Arif Khan had cancelled the allotted land in five Dehs ( Salhyani, Sanhri, Mir Khan Abro, Mahar wada, and Faridabad) that had previously been allotted by another deputy commissioner.

Despite orders, the forest officials had failed to recover the land in Deh Sanhri of Dokri taluka.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, on November, 15, 1995 Imdadullah Unnar former member (judicial) of the Board of Revenue, Sindh, in a detailed decision, advised the secretary forest to update the revenue record with reference to saving the forest land by making entries in V.F.1-A record of the revenue.

Once the forest land in entered in this record it could not be changed by the revenue officials and in this way thousands of acres of land could be protected. The fact of the matter is that except in Larkana, the forest land throughout Sindh had been entered in V.F.1-A form (Village Form-1-A).

At one stage the matter of illegal occupation was referred to the army teams but in vain, the sources added saying that trees from once the ideal forests — Belli Gaji and Arbipota had been brutally chopped by the influential.

Mumtaz Bhutto as caretaker chief minister placed the district forests Officer Abdul Haq Bhatti and conservator Ali Gul Lakho under suspension.

Unfortunately in 1995 these two forests located in Larkana district were annexed in the jurisdiction of Khairpur district.

Now the only recourse is to make it mandatory for the revenue officials to keep the forests land record in V.F.1-A form to avoid the encroachments and if the practice continued it would squeeze the forests land in the district.