KARACHI, June 6: The land-grabbers who have already been using a piece of government land in Lea Market illegally, seem to be making clandestine efforts to make their illegal occupation permanent.

The precious municipal land in front of the registration office in in Lea Market, Lyari Town, is an open space originally reserved for parking official vehicles. The land-grabbers, after encroaching upon the land, have been using it as a terminus for their upcountry-bound buses.

They park the vehicles not only in the front of the registration office, but also in the adjacent streets where they have set up a booking offices for passengers.

Residents of the area, facing immense hardship due to the congestion and other hazards created by the parking, blame traffic police and municipal officials who have turned a blind eye towards the whole affair.

They say that arrival and departure of buses, as well as parking of many a vehicles at a time, results in complete chaos during peak hours every day. The situation aggravates in the evening when the transporters park their vehicles in the middle of the roads in the locality, thus causing clogging of traffic in a vast area around the occupied land.

The people allege police of collusion with 'transport mafia' which preventing them from taking an action against the unscrupulous elements. The affected people believe that the mafia has become so powerful that it has now gained control of all the roads surrounding the market and uses any of these arteries for parking purpose at its will and without fearing for any legal action.

In December 2002, a move to auction this plot of historic importance had triggered off a controversy between the city government and Lyari Town administration.

The city government had even invited bids for the auction but had to reconsider the decision in view of strong protest by the town administration and local people.

The municipal office was built in pre-independence days and remained in the use of sanitation section of the local municipality's health department. Later, it was allotted to the sub-registrar of the Lyari Division as registration office for the processing of property documents.