After demolishing ‘illegal structures’ at Khokhar Palace in Lahore the other day, the Punjab government has now bulldozed the offices of PML-N leader and former defence minister Khawaja Asif’s housing society in Sialkot.
The district administration and municipal corporation officials backed by the police demolished the structures of the housing society claiming that they were illegally built.
The authorities said the said land was reserved for a graveyard and parking but the housing society illegally built its four-storey offices on it, necessitating an action from the government.
The operation against the housing society involved officers and staff of the district administration along with dozens of government vehicles and heavy machinery. Sialkot Chief Corporation Officer Faisal said the offices of the housing society were built illegally deviating from the approved plans and the maps.
This is the second time in the last seven days that a high-profile anti-encroachment operation against the so-called ‘land mafia’ has been launched and at both occasions the ‘properties’ belonged to the PML-N leaders.
First, the Punjab government had demolished the structures at Lahore’s famous Khokhar Palace belonging to the Khokhar brothers and now Khawaja’s housing scheme has been targeted. A furious PML-N termed the operation political victimisation and Maryam Nawaz herself visited the Khokhar brothers and extended her support by expressed solidarity with them. Later, MNA Afzal Khokhar presented a privilege motion in the National Assembly and pleaded he was innocent and the government breached the sanctity of his house.
It is pertinent to note that, an accountability court in Lahore last week rejected a NAB request seeking a 15-day extension in PML-N leader Khawaja Asif’s physical remand and issued orders for 14-day judicial remand instead. Khawaja Asif had been arrested by the anti-graft watchdog on December 30, 2020 from outside Ahsan Iqbal’s residence in Islamabad where he had come to attend a party meeting.