Mayor Wahab says construction work near Karachi's Hill Park halted; MQM-P demands probe into 'NOC'

KARACHI: Mayor Murtaza Wahab on Sunday said construction work around Karachi’s Hill Park had been halted, while the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) demanded that the PPP-led Sindh government investigate the matter. Spread over 62 acres and located in PECHS, Hill Park was built in the early 1960s and is one of the largest parks in the city. In a statement issued on Saturday night, a Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) spokesperson said that the construction work was halted a week ago following a public complaint. Confirming this during his media talk on Sunday, Wahab clarified that the KMC had not “auctioned or allotted any land to anyone”. He recalled that a week before Eidul Azha, he received a complaint, following which he sent a KMC team to the area. “I instructed them that if the construction is taking place within the KMC land, then proceed with demolition,” he said. “Not even an inch of KMC land has been allotted,” the mayor reiterated, dismissing MQM-P’s claims of granting permission for construction work as political point-scoring. Mayor Wahab stressed that Hill Park “had always been KMC’s property and will continue to remain as such”. In the Saturday statement, the KMC spokesperson noted that legal action had been initiated as its Land Department “sent a letter to the police asking that the construction be stopped and action should be taken against those responsible”. As per the statement, “an investigation into the public complaints revealed that the KMC made no allotment or that any construction permission was issued”. The statement added that the mayor had issued instructions to relevant officers to take action, further stating that the Land Department had also sought “formal verification from PECHS to confirm the ownership of the land”. It said that KMC had also sent a formal letter to the police to take “legal action against illegal occupation of the government land”. In t...

Original source: Dawn Pakistan