SIALKOT: On Sunday, the district administration and municipal corporation officials launched an operation in the Kent View Housing Society to retrieve occupied land. The said society is allegedly owned by the senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Khawaja Asif.
The move comes after a similar anti-encroachment drive against PML-N leaders, the Khokhar Brothers, in Lahore. The demolition of the Khokhar Palace (the residence of the Khokhar brothers) has been challenged in the Lahore High Court as of now.
The concerned authorities stated that the operation was launched to recover land reserved for graveyard and parking but had been occupied by the Kent View Housing Society. The authorities further informed that the society management had built a four-storey building on the site in response to which the operation was conducted.
Sialkot Municipal Corporation maintains that the structures were built in violation of the approved plans and the maps. The district administration and municipal corporation officials in the presence of police officers demolished the structures.
Khawaja Asif was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in relation to the same housing society back in December after a party meeting of the PML-N outside the residence of Ahsan Iqbal in Islamabad. Former Sialkot mayor Toheed Akhtrer termed the operation “worst political victimisation.”
He claimed the administration did not even allow them to pick up Rs632 million from the cash drawer of the housing society’s offices. Reports of clashes between the policemen and the PML-N workers were also received from the scene.
An inquiry into the matter is also underway at an anti-corruption establishment and NAB.
