While we are all cognisant of the fact that terrorism presents an existential threat to the country, why are we ignoring the multiple threats presented by the land mafia active in all our major cities? In Karachi, the land mafia is involved in drugs, illegal weapons, kidnappings for ransom, bank robberies and many other crimes; it has made the city a living hell for the common citizen.
In Lahore, there is a well-connected land mafia that keeps its eyes on uninhabited plots and buildings in prime areas and moves in with fake ID cards to take possession, leaving the real owners (often living abroad) to then pursue the case in the courts for years.
While Islamabad is a comparatively much safer city than Karachi, it too has a local version of the land mafia whose activities go unchecked. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has recently admitted that 54,552 kanals of state-owned land are under the possession of land grabbers or have been encroached upon!
Land grabbing by the so-called “land mafia” is reportedly prolific in Pakistan, particularly in and around Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. In some cases, housing authorities have allegedly colluded with property developers, who employ private militias to secure the land.
The reason that land mafias get away with their illegal activities is because of the patronage of powerful politicians and government officials — it really is as simple as that. The land mafia is a nexus comprising politicians, criminals, property dealers and corrupt government officials.
In 2011, the Supreme Court, noting that it would not allow the land mafia to grab state land, asked the CDA to retake 20,000 acres of land the CDA says is under illegal occupation (including in Bani Gala). Usually the CDA heads are reluctant to challenge illegal encroachments because of the powerful people hiding behind these land grabbers, so it was hoped that the Supreme Court’s decision would spur them into action. However, the civic agency failed to reclaim most of the encroached land. The CDA even has satellite images of Islamabad that prove encroachments have increased in the federal capital by 70 per cent in the last 10 years.