LARKANA: About 40,000 acres of forest department’s land has been encroached upon in entire Larkana division where vegetables, wheat, sugarcane, and other crops are sown by the occupants.
The forest department’s officers are not even prepared to visit these lands due to fear while guards are reluctant to lodge FIRs against the land grabbers.
According to the gathered information, there are three divisions of forest department in Larkana including Larkana, Shikarpur and Kashmore. The limits of Larkana district are from Sharifpur forest near Radhan to Amrot Sharif wherein 51,000 acres of land is owned by the forest department out of which influential people of different communities have encroached upon 10,000 acres.
These forest lands are located in Dokri, Bakrani, Larkana and Ratodero tehsils (Taluka) where palaces have also been constructed. The Forest Department is the owner of 20,100 acres land in Kashmore division out of which 9,000 acres have been occupied by land grabbers.
Jhanghan Park of Kashmore district is also under occupation and lands of Gabloo Park and Gadani Park have been silted. Even deforestation is going on in many areas on massive scale for which no action has so far been taken against anyone.
It is to be noted that under forest act 1927(27) FIRs can be lodged against these land grabbers and the accused can be challaned in the court of a civil judge but even this option is not being used.
Divisional Forest Officer Larkana Muhammad Ali Unar told reporters here on Sunday that they have been taking actions and cases are pending with Sindh High Court Circuit Court, Larkana, against encroachment on Madeji and Bahman plots.
DFO Kashmore Sanaullah Baloch said that 41 cases have been registered against illegal occupants of about 9000 acres of government land but due to non-approach of the police the influential persons and criminals have forcibly taken over the government lands.
He said with the cooperation of PPL, plotting has been done over 450 acres of the land but due to silt nursery has not yet been established in Gabloo Park. Baloch said that Jhanghan Park is located in the riverine area.
