LAHORE: Chief Secretary Punjab Jawwad Rafique Malik has said that land grabbing of overseas Pakistanis will not be tolerated at any cost and the Punjab government is doing everything to retrieve their land.

He expressed these views while chairing an important meeting to address the issue of land grabbing in particular significance to the lands of overseas Pakistanis.

The meeting was attended by Commissioner Overseas Pakistanis Commission Punjab Naila Baqir, Director Admn OPC Tayyab Farid, IG Punjab Inam Ghani, CCPO Lahore Ghulam Mehmood Dogar, DIG Operations Ashfaq Khan, Deputy Commissioner Lahore Mussadiq Riaz Malik, Director General LDA Muhammad Aziz Tarar, and Registrar Cooperatives Department Muhammad Usman Moazam.

The complaints regarding land grabbing were reviewed in the meeting and directions were taken to dispose of those complaints as early as possible.

Commissioner OPC Naila Baqir briefed the chair that 261 complaints from Lahore have been reviewed and forwarded to the district administration Lahore and other relevant departments for the disposal of complaints. As many as 218 complaints have been forwarded to DOPC Lahore, 34 complaints have been sent to Punjab police, four to LDA and two complaints were forwarded to the cooperatives departments. The Chief Secretary and the IG Punjab directed the stakeholders to resolve the matter on priority basis.

DC Lahore Mudassir Riaz Malik briefed the chair that the district administration is putting all-out efforts to address the grievances of Overseas Pakistanis and recently a land with an estimated cost of Rs7 billion of a UK national Pakistani was retrieved.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021