‘Sale of land attached to Sikh shrines against rules’

Public Accounts Committee Chairman Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan,who is also Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly,asked the ETPB to present a report on the issue as the management of properties of minority communities is a “sensitive” matter. ETPB Chairman Syed Asif Hashmi,who appeared before the panel,said the board had an agreement with the DHA,whereby it provided 850 kanals of land.

The DHA was to return 43 per cent of ETPB’s land after developing it but it returned only 25 per cent,he said. Earlier,Hashmi told PTI: “I think now the controversy will be settled after the intervention of the Public Accounts Committee.” Under the ETPB Management and Disposal Act of 1975,the body’s function is to develop agriculture land for increasing its productivity and enhancing the commercial value of its property.

Instead of developing the land for increasing its productivity,the board allegedly sold it to the DHA in a deal that changed the very nature of the agriculture land into residential plots. The ETPB is not vested with the power to do so,according to official sources.