Airport and Cantt projects force Gwadar locals out

[CMY]

* ‘Land worth Rs 2m/acre being sold for half the price’

KARACHI: The local Baloch of Gwadar are being forced to evacuate their homes by a land clearing group allegedly backed by the government that wants to take over their land, said office bearers of the Baloch Promotive Action Committee Gwadar while addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday.

The committee’s presidents, Madiha Baloch and Elahi Buksh, said that the people of Gwadar have been residing on the land in question for centuries but now were being asked to leave without a substantial alternative. “The recent action taken by a group for the possession of their land is totally unjustifiable. Where will they go, leaving their ancestral lands? The government should provide them with alternative land or compensate them with an amount of money that is worth their land,” said Baloch.

The land in dispute is Grandani, South and Western Darbela, Ziarat Machhi of union council Sarbandar. “We were told that the land is intruding the boundaries of the new airport and cantonment area; the locals have to move somewhere else,” she said, adding that those who tried resisting the actions of the group trying to clear the land have been charged, and cases are being registered against them for refusing to accept the small amount of compensation being offered.

Baloch stressed that the committee is not against the construction of an airport or a cantonment area, but its priority is to provide the residents of the area with alternative land or proper compensation. The office bearers also claimed that the revenue department officials have been involved in such malpractices as changing the name and ownership documents with fake ID card numbers and selling the land, pocketing the money in the process. They demanded that the “supposedly people-friendly government take action against the injustice being faced by the people of Gwadar”.

The office bearers of the committee also alleged that the Revenue department has changed the records and land survey reports and no official records such as maps, names and survey numbers are available. They also claimed that big political figures such as a former chief minister of Balochistan, the heads of two major political parties based in the Punjab, possess a major portion of the land in Union Council Sarbandar.

“The ancestral land has already been sold after the records were changed,” claimed Baloch. “Some of the old settlers returned to their lands to find they did not exist.” The price of the land is two million rupees per acre but the government declared its rate one million rupees. “The Revenue department sold the same land to a builder and the land mafia from Karachi for 50,000 to 150,000 rupees depending on the location,” he added. staff report

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