Taseer’s secy, 42 others face arrest in land scam


Pakistan Tribune

aturday July 05, 2008 (1217 PST)


ISLAMABAD: Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera, Secretary to Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, who is at the centre of a land allotment scam, is now facing threat of suspension, followed probably by arrest on charges of getting agricultural lands meant only for generals.
He and 42 other officers are also facing suspension from service on charges of acquiring lands without any provision in the relevant laws. Talking to The News, ISPR Director-General Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said that he had written a letter to the concerned branch at the GHQ to know the details of land allotments to civilians as reported and would be in a position to give a comprehensive version after some time.

A top source said that as a first step, these agricultural lands allotted in the name of civilian officials in the range of 12.5 acres to 50 acres per person were being cancelled forthwith before formal registration of a case followed by arrest of these officers who have now been charged of “misconduct” unbecoming of a civil servant. These officers like the military men got the lands at a token price of Rs 175 per acre.

Meanwhile, official documents available with The News reveal that the Punjab Revenue Department has now moved an official note to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in which he has been asked to take disciplinary action against these 43 officers, including the secretary to the Punjab governor.

Talking to The News, Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera from Lahore said questions about any land allotment in his name should be directly asked from the GHQ in Rawalpindi, and not from him or those civilian officers whose names appeared in the story.

When asked whether he had got the land allotted, the secretary to the Punjab governor said he would neither deny nor confirm it. He added that no one could force the GHQ at gunpoint to allot lands to civilians.

“Even if the lands were allotted, then only the GHQ should be asked about such allotments, not the allottees,” he maintained. When told that government officers like him involved in the land scam were facing disciplinary action and even arrest, Nawaz said let the Punjab government do what it wanted to do.

Sources claimed once the ongoing investigations into the land allotment scam were completed, they all would be formally charged, arrested and produced before the court for accountability.

The possible arrest of the secretary to the Punjab governor may spark another big row between the Governor House and the Chief Minister Secretariat. Shahbaz Sharif is said to have given go ahead to the law enforcement agencies to arrest these officers whose names have been forwarded to him by the Punjab Board of Revenue.

The GHQ had been making allotments of agricultural lands to generals in Bahawalpur, Bhawalnagar, Khanewal and other agricultural districts of the Seraiki region. This practice had been criticised in the past by the natives of these areas, who always termed it a new form of Colonization.

Several nationalist parties in the southern belt of Punjab have been staging protests against such allotments. These generals usually have been selling the land at big prices after getting them at the rate of only Rs 175 per acre. Now these generals have been joined by the new feudal lords from the civil bureaucracy.

The new PML-N government was shocked to see how agricultural lands in different parts of the Seraiki region were exclusively allotted to civil servants without any provision in the law. During the investigations, it emerged that the GHQ itself had allotted these lands in the name of these officers, who included secretaries of ministries concerned to even assistants and patwaris of the provincial department.

The most shocking thing is that these lands were given to these officers by the GHQ and it is still a mystery why the GHQ was so keen to distribute allotment letters among officials of the Revenue Department who were not authorised to get such lands.

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