Land mafia grabbed, sold President Arif Alvi's plot in Karachi

KARACHI: A group of land grabbers not only occupied but sold President Arif Alvi’s 400 square yards plot in Karachi, ARY News reported.

Arif Alvi had bought this plot in Block 10, Gulistan-e-Johar, for Rs50,000 in 1978, 40 years ago. He could not reclaim it even after passage of many years.

He had declared this plot in his asset details with the Election Commission of Pakistan and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

The PTI leader had submitted an application with the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) in February 2017 seeking recovery of his plot. He had alleged that the plot was sold by KDA officials through china-cutting.

ARY News correspondent Faizullah Khan said Alvi’s plot was sold after cutting it into parts.

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A large number of other people are also affected of this scam. A huge pile of such complaints has been accumulated with Director General KDA Sami Siddiqui. Affectees said the DG KDA had turned a blind eye towards their issue. The china-cutting has completely changed face of Block 10, Gulistan-e-Johar.

China cutting is basically an illegal way of carving out big amenity plots, community centres, government plots, parks or even cemeteries into smaller plots up to 100 yards or below each and sale them.

For instance, carving 100, 80 or 60 yards plots from a single plot of 500 yards is called ‘china cutting.

While, the land mafia is a nexus of politicians, government officials, criminals and property dealers.