Around 25,000 acres of forestland in Sindh is still under illegal possession of land mafia, Business Recorder learnt here on Wednesday. Sources in Sindh Forest and Wildlife Department said that a grand operation was launched by Sindh police, in collaboration with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), to get the land evacuated by the land grabbers.
"However, the police has failed to achieve its target in the given deadline of September 5 set by the NAB to evacuate all forest land being grabbed by individual or groups," they said. Until now 35,000 acres land had been evacuated in various forests scattered across the province, they said, and added most of the land situated in Thatta, Dadu and other areas.
It may be pointed out that of the around 600,000 acres of total forest land, 400,000 acres comprises riverine forest land along the Indus river and 200,000 acres of inland forest in various parts of the province.
The sources said that high level meeting, held in Karachi in mid-October and chaired by the National Accountability Bureau Director General, was informed that some influential persons were backing the persons involved in the grabbing of forestland.
The meeting was also attended by the Secretary, Sindh Forest and Wildlife Department, senior member of Sindh Board of Revenue, Secretary, Land Utilisation Department and officials of law-enforcement agencies. The meeting was further informed that police also hesitated to use force to evacuate the land as they faced enormous pressure to stop action against the grabbers.
Sindh Forest and Wildlife Secretary Mahboob Ahmed Ansari told Business Recorder that the department was working in collaboration with the law-enforcement agencies to get the precious land of the province evacuated as early as possible.
He commended the efforts of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in evacuating the land, saying that it had also encouraged law-enforcers to take action against the influential culprits. Ansari hoped that the forestland would be completely evacuated by the end of December.
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