Narowal DC fails to retrieve state land from illegal occupants

 The Narowal district administration has failed to retrieve around 20 kanals of state land from illegal occupants backed by a former MPA of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). 
The illegal occupants backed by the former PTI MPA have occupied the land allocated by the state for public use in Village Hamral, Tehsil Zafarwal, District Narowal and built illegal structures on it. 
Since the illegal occupants of the state land enjoy a strong political backing, the district administration is reluctant to take action against them despite the fact that they have even occupied a 16-foot wide and 1km long public way, which connects one end of the village to the other like a ring road. 
Also, these illegal occupants have grabbed a part of the land allocated for the village graveyard, a public use water pond and a plot meant for common use by village people. 

On August 12, 2022, some people of the village submitted an application against illegal occupants Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Ilyas, Ali Ahmed, Basharat Ali, Muhammad Sarwar, Muhammad Irshad, Shaukat Ali and others to the Narowal deputy commissioner. The deputy commissioner marked the application to the Zafarwal assistant commissioner, who directed the revenue officials to visit the village, look into the issue and submit a report to him. 
On August 20, 2022, the revenue officials visited the village and submitted their report to the Zafarwal assistant commissioner, confirming that the state land allocated for a 16-foot wide public way, a water pond, graveyard and a dumping site has been grabbed by some people of the same village. 
On August 23, 2022, the Zafarwal assistant commissioner directed a team of revenue officials led by the tehsildar to retrieve the grabbed state land from the illegal occupants and take action against them. The tehsildar visited the village and verbally told the grabbers to vacate the state land, but they did not do so and the issue remains unresolved till date. 
Later, the complainants in this case again approached the deputy commissioner and the assistant commissioner, but every time they direct the revenue officials to retrieve the state land from the grabbers, the local PTI MPA intervenes and stops the revenue officials from taking action against the grabbers. 
The village people have now appealed to Punjab Interim Chief Minister Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi to order the Narowal deputy commissioner to look into this matter and retrieve the state land from the PTI MPA’s men without any further delay.