ISLAMABAD, July 29: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Monday ordered an inquiry into the clash between police and villagers at Sector D-12 which claimed four lives, a source in the interior ministry told Dawn.
He said the president had taken strict notice of the incident and directed the officials concerned to take action against those responsible.
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman and chief commissioner of Islamabad, Mir Laiq Shah, has also ordered a probe into the incident.
The clash is stated to be the second of its kind after Bani Gala tragedy, in which five people were killed some years ago.
Talking to Dawn, some residents of Siri Saral and Pind Sangrial villages, where the new sector was being developed, said the CDA was executing the project without settling the issue of land acquisition.
They said some 2,000 houses in the two villages would have to be removed by the authority. The foundation-stone-laying ceremony of Sector D-12, near Golra, was held on July 16 by interior minister Moinuddin Haider. However, villagers refused to vacate the land, unless they were allotted plots at other places or given compensation.
They managed to get the development work at the new sector stopped a week ago by offering resistance for seeking compensation of their land acquired by the CDA.
The authority staff engaged for the development work had to return from the site and, later, the machinery like bulldozers, tractors etc., were also removed.
The villagers, including women and children, had been observing a sit-in on the site, since the development work stopped.
Some of the villagers have been given alternative land in Sector I-14. However, most of them were still waiting for the compensation, a leader of the affected residents of Siri Saral, Malik Abdul Rehman, said. Some 2,000 kanals in Sector D-12 are still disputed, he added.
Some 12 villagers, who have over 100 kanals each in Siri Saral, are demanding that they should be given agricultural plots in compensation. They said their land had been acquired in 1985 under the CDA’s land disposal policy 1984. However, the authority did not follow the policy and acquired the land at the rate of Rs100 to Rs500 per kanal, they added.
The villagers said they had been given a meagre compensation amount and the CDA should pay more for acquiring their land.
When contacted, the CDA director public relations, Rawal Khan Maitla, told Dawn on telephone that, “no more compensation will be provided to the villagers as the CDA has already given them 1,200 plots and Rs260 million,” he added.
The CDA official confirmed the killing of three people — a policeman and two villagers — and injuring of 25 others, including a magistrate and SP.