Haripur:
The land dispute near the Khanpur dam involving a public park intensified between the landowners and the municipal administration of Khanpur Tehsil (TMA), women joining the demonstrators on Thursday.
According to the demonstrators, the case is currently heard before a superior court, and no official measure could be authorized on the site. After negotiations with the administration, the situation calmed down.
Sources have said that tensions intensified when the Khanpur TMA brought heavy machines to the site to mark the designated land for the park. However, the land dispute of the Khanpur dam degenerates, women join the demonstrators prevented TMA officials from carrying out work. When the machines arrived, a large number of local women have also gathered on the spot alongside men to protest.
The landowners claimed to have obtained a suspension prescription from the Abbottabad bench from the High Court of Peshawar (PHC) which prevents the TMA from proceeding. They said that even if the TMA takes place, it would be illegal.
Addressing the media, the municipal officer of Tehsil de Tma Khanpur (TMO), Ayesha Tahira, said that if the PHC had transmitted an order of residence or an injunction to the landowners, they should present it. She added that TMA had not yet received an official apparatus of the court on this subject.
Later, the DSP of Haripur Arif Khan organized negotiations with the officials of TMA and the protest parties and successfully persuaded the two parties to accept to finish the demarcation of the designated land for the park.
He also assured that if PHC or any other court makes a suspension order, the TMA will fully comply.
An agreement was finally reached amicably, avoiding what had become a very tense situation with the risk of confrontation.
Land owners argue that the district administration acts unfairly by trying to illegally include their ancestral and inhabited lands in the public park.
