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A Probe into NAB Investigations Against DHA City and Bahria Town Karachi

Bahria Town and DHA City NAB Cases

There is no denying the fact that Bahria Town Karachi has literally challenged and transformed the standards and concept of housing development in Pakistan. There is no precedent in Pakistan that a private company ever managed to establish a unique city following modern development standards at a desolate place in record time of 3 years or so. On the other hand, DHA City Karachi is all set to establish a first ever green and sustainable city of Pakistan at the same desolate location on Super Highway. It has also managed to open campuses of IBA, Dow Medical University and Shoukat Khanam Cancer Hospital.

Although billions of rupees of hard earned money by thousands of Pakistanis living inland or abroad have been invested already in these two giant housing projects, yet there are reportedly some serious land issues being investigated in the National Accountability Bureau of Pakistan that can virtually ruin all this development spree and cause heavy losses to thousands of Pakistanis.

According to some recent news reports, there are serious illegal land acquisition and irregularities charges against Bahria Town Karachi and DHA City that are under investigation. We will discuss those issues in this article, and try to understand what could possibly be the outcome of such belated justice for general public in order to curb groundless rumors.

Bahria Town Karachi is accused of having illegally acquired thousands of acres of land on Super Highway from Sindh Government. Some reports even suggest that the land wasn’t actually owned by Sindh Government but some locals in that area who were kicked out of their homes through suppression. Moreover, Bahria Town was given permission to develop over 1300 acres of land, whereas the developer has expanded the development work over an area more than 23000 acres of land. So, the charges against Bahria Town are violation of NOC and illegal land acquisition.

While delving deeper into the issue, we hear the rumors that the disputed land lies in phase 3 and 4 of Bahria Town Karachi which comprise Bahria Sports City and Bahria Paradise. When we see both projects, we come to know that there is no restriction on development work, and a large number of machinery is engaged day and night to materialize the projects. ARY group has recently signed agreement to launch ARY Residencia in Bahria Sports City, so it seems unlikely that a large media group will be unaware of the land issues.

There is still no official demarcation available publicly of the disputed land, so we cannot say for sure as to which part may possibly fall under the disputed territory.

In case of DHA City Karachi, recently NAB has started investigation on illegal acquisition from Sindh Government at dirt cheap price causing heavy loss to the national exchequer.

According to Dawn News, the land was given on lease to local farmers earlier who were using that land for farming purpose as well as residence. Later on, the government canceled the lease without notice and handed over to DHA at 1 lac per acre price which is a throwaway price that caused heavy loss to national exchequer.

Watch the following video to understand the nature of land issue with DHA City:

As a representative of general public, we are highly concerned about people’s money which may be at risk due to any reckless decision by the authorities which seems quite unlikely considering the public interest at large. Authorities must take the fact into account that general public has nothing to do with the irregularities or violation of rules, therefore they must not suffer as a consequence of implementation of justice.

How ironic is the fact that both companies are the biggest real estate developers of Pakistan, and known for the quality and standards of housing development across Pakistan. People like us normally do not have access to the internal matters of land acquisition and fulfillment of legal requirements, so we expect that the concerned authorities should take care of such issues. We, the people, rely heavily on what is being advertised and what is visible to us.

It is a fact that physical development work on both projects is ongoing at good pace. Bahria Town seems to have established a modern city spread over miles of land that features wide roads, theme park, night safari, luxury villas, spacious apartments, enchanting monuments, dazzling dancing fountains, a golf course, international stadium, a central park, world’s 3rd largest Masjid and much more. Regardless of the accusations, both developers are doing wonders and creating jobs for thousands of families across Pakistan directly or indirectly.

The authorities must assure that general public who have invested hundreds of billions of rupees will be safeguarded in every possible way. Both giant developers have all the resources to compensate for their wrongdoings if proven. So, all the rumors causing panic in the market must be silenced officially in order to sustain the market.

Mr. Kamran Khan from Dunya News has recently voiced his concerns on the volume of public investments and ongoing investigations by NAB. He also suggests that authorities and developers must resolve legal issues without causing any harm to general public.

The video is attached below:

2 Comments

  1. Imran Mohammad says:

    Its all sindh government fault they shouldve stop bahria and Dha before it even started, after we overseas pakis invested so much money and paid all installment for 4 years and now they telling us its illegal? We overseas will never trust pakistan government if thesr projects gets stop, also will take big time action against kda and sindh goverment, thats the only reason pakistani citizen invest $650 millions dollars in dubai instead of pakistan, because they dont trust their government. If s.c makes 1 mistake the whole economy will go down and pakistan will lose their foreign investors plus there will be consequeces, because our money doesnt grow on trees we work hard and earn our money, not like nawaz shareef who stole and make properties.

    • testingbeta says:

      agreed, govt and others sleep when such projects are starting and they wake up ALWAYS in middle of project, can we suspect they do this for “apna bhi hissa hona chiay”

      we all know Sahab uper say sakhti hay = more bribe

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