Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that the lease of 70 villages of District Malir has been cancelled on legal grounds, but a fresh survey would be conducted to regularise the genuine villages.
"This exercise has been done to get rid of land grabbers who had grabbed government land in the name of villages," said a statement issued from the CM House on Saturday.
It said that the residents of genuine villages of District Malir do not need to worry.
"We would conduct a fresh survey to regularise the genuine villages," the chief minister said and added that lawful villagers would not be deprived of their right.
Syed Qaim Ali Shah said under the Urban Villages Regularisation law of 2008 the villages which exist before or up to year 2000 qualify to be regularised. In 2012 some 70 villages of district Malir were regularised without fulfilling legal requirements.
The chief minister said that before regularisation of a village its complete survey is conducted to ascertain the area of the village, number of people living there, houses, mosques and even industrial units, if any, located there and the year when it was established. But in this case, these formalities were not met. That's why their regularisation was withdrawn.