Influential person has occupied community land: Lawi residents

CHITRAL: Residents of Lawi in Drosh have alleged that an influential person of their area in connivance with the staff of the settlement department occupied a public grazing ground by tampering with the revenue record.

Speaking at a press conference here on Saturday, Nasir Mehmood, Amin Mehmood, Abdul Basit, Muhammad Din and Sajjad Ahmed said they were the oldest inhabitants of the villages consisting of about 250 houses.

They said the influential resident of the village has managed to register Khasra No 384 and 387 in his own name through the settlement staff even tough the land was a community grazing ground.

They claimed that the land had been declared as state property by two civil courts under the 1975 notification.

They said the game to occupy the land was planned after the launch of work on the Lawi hydro powerhouse that sent rates of land in the area skyrocketing.

They said barren and un-utilized land across Chitral were used by the local communities as grazing grounds or for other purposes but in Lawi a single person had occupied such a piece of land.

They said the government should take notice of the issue and order a probe to ascertain why a community land has been declared a private property.

Reporting: Muhkam Uddin Ayuni