ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: Not only individuals and private concerns but also government departments like the armed forces are in illegal possession of 5,377 of the 167,690 acres of land owned by Pakistan Railways.

A comprehensive report on a plan to revamp Railways submitted in the Supreme Court by the organisation’s Chairman of Railways Javed Ahmed on Thursday conceded that armed forces alone were in possession of 860.9 acres of land.

Of 860.9 acres, a huge chunk of 607.25 acres is with Pakistan Rangers, 161 acres with Frontier Corps in Balochistan and 92.65 acres with Pakistan Army. The apex court is hearing a case on Pakistan Railways’ deteriorating state of affairs.

The report said that so far Pakistan Railways had retrieved 325.675 acres of its land—29.8 acres in Rawalpindi, 195.404 in Multan, 30.4 in Karachi, 5.29 in Quetta, 22.9 in Peshawar, 27.6 in Sukkur and 13.4 in Lahore.

About 4,516 acres of land is under occupation of individuals and government departments in Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Sukkur, Karachi and Quetta.

On Nov 4, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Railways was informed that 155 acres of Railway land in Rawalpindi division had been occupied by government departments, including Joint Staff headquarters, private housing societies and Defence Housing Authority.

At the last hearing on Oct 31, the Supreme Court had noted that it had already issued a direction in the Karachi case for the recovery of government land grabbed by the land mafia and ordered Railways to approach the administration concerned in this regard.