RAWALPINDI, Feb 2: The residents of Hai Humak, Niazian, Kortana and Sihala on Sunday threatened to stage a sit-in in front of the Aiwan-i-Sadr and block G.T. Road if the authorities concerned did not resolve their grievances.

Speaking at a press conference at the Rawalpindi Press Club, the members of the action committee of the Army Housing Welfare Scheme 2 affected persons condemned the acquisition of their lands by the Army Welfare Trust. They appealed to President Pervez Musharraf and the corps commander Rawalpindi to look into the matter and resolve their grievances.

They criticized the latest move by the Army Welfare Trust of occupying a big chunk of their farm lands for the construction of a housing scheme.

The president of the committee, Khalid Naseem Qureshi, and general-secretary Haji Asghar Haidari said according to the master plan prepared under the CDA Ordinance, 1960, their land fell in the jurisdiction of the industrial area on Kahuta Road. They said, therefore, their land could not be taken from them for residential purposes for any society or company except for industrial development. They further said if the CDA wanted to acquire their land for industrial purposes, it would have to compensate them under the set rules.

They claimed that the army officials were forcing them to vacate the land under the Acquisition Act of 1894. However, their land fell in the jurisdiction of the federal capital and not in the Punjab, therefore this act could not be applicable on them.

They further said despite the fact that the affected persons had secured a stay in their favour from the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench, and the Army Welfare Trust had failed to obtain a no-objection certificate (NoC) from the CDA’s director-general planning, the army high-ups were forcing them to accept their demands.

They claimed that the officials threatened the residents to accept a compensation of Rs57,000 per kanal and vacate the land as soon as possible or else they would have to face dire consequences. They said there was a total of 15,000 kanals, out of which the army had already occupied 7,000 kanals on the pretext of using it for defence purposes.

But, later, the land was divided into plots and distributed among army officials, who sold these to private parties at high rates.

About the compensations which the CDA had already provided to other affected persons of the capital’s industrial area, Mr Qureshi said: “The CDA had compensated those people by allotting them plots and Morabbas in Multan and Sahiwal, but the army officials instead of safeguarding the lives and properties of the poor were attacking them for vested interests.”

He said the Army Welfare Trust was violating the master plan of Islamabad, while, only the parliament was entitled to change or amend the CDA Ordinance.