Karachi: The ongoing political row between Pakistan Peoples’ Party ruling in Sindh and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf - an opposition party in the province - further escalated as an anti-encroachment campaign of the Sindh government demolished farmhouses reportedly owned by Leader of the Opposition in Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh and his family.
The anti-encroachment drive was launched in District Malir of Karachi by Sindh government to retrieve hundreds of acres of land being illegally used there for commercial gains including construction of housing schemes and farmhouses.
The government officials including police personnel faced stiff resistance during the anti-encroachment operation as staff members associated with these farmhouses violently protested to impede the demolition activity.
Family targeted
The protestors also blocked M-9 motorway between Karachi and Hyderabad for sometime.
Shaikh said that since the time he had assumed the office of Leader of Opposition in Sindh Assembly last month, the Sindh government of PPP had stepped up the process of political victimization against him.
He said that he and his family was being targeted by the Sindh government as he exposed bad governance by ruling PPP in the province.
He said that such acts of political vendetta would not deter him from speaking against failure of the Sindh government to do public service.
He said the Sindh government’s action against the farmhouses of his family was undue as they were built on properly leased land while the court had also granted stay against any such demolition operation by the government.
The Sindh government said that the anti-encroachment drive had been continuing since last year on an indiscriminate basis to retrieve government land in Karachi whose unauthorised commercial use had been continuing.
Dairy farms
Sindh Information and Local Government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah said the land in District Malir had been given on a 30-year lease only for farming, building poultry and dairy farms.
He said that it was illegal to build palatial farmhouses on such land having facilities like swimming pool for commercial gains.
He said the Sindh government’s drive against such encroachment of government land had been continuing in accordance with the directives of Chief Justice of Pakistan as it was undue to assume that it was an act of vengeance against any opposition political leader.
He requested Prime Minister Imran Khan to order a judicial inquiry to ascertain the facts about the ongoing anti-encroachment drive so to know that it was purely an administrative action.
