Hundreds of acres of Army land given as bribe to JUI
The News, November 02, 2008
By Ansar Abbasi
ISLAMABAD: The mystery behind General Pervez Musharraf’s success in convincing Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI in 2004 not to oppose his uniform has been partially solved — the general had doled out hundreds of acres of military land worth millions of rupees to the near and dear ones of the Maulana.
Documents of these land allotments obtained by The News explain why the Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) always remained a friendly opposition to General Pervez Musharraf, bailed him out at critical times and why its JUI-led provincial government was able to complete a five-year term in the NWFP.
The scale of the buyout price of the JUI, which has now been confirmed, is massive in terms of state land and money paid to the JUI leaders and their relatives.
It is not clear whether the Pakistan Army could actually cancel these allotments of its lands to relatives of a politician even if it wanted to.
Musharraf’s dubious promise of taking off his uniform by December 2004 was first quietly accepted by the MMA and then when he went back on his promise the JUI-led MMA never created any problem, except for low-level noises made off and on for public consumption.
This was done all because JUI’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman had been allotted hundreds of acres of state land, mostly in the name of his relatives, staff and employees. Documents of these allotted lands, now in the possession of The News, reveal the blatant corruption of the JUI leaders, who use Islam to fool the people but never stop from compromising themselves and their principles for material and monetary gains.
The ousted dictator is now known to have secretly allotted 1,200 Kanals of military land in D I Khan to his opposition leader in the last National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his chief minister in the NWFP Akram Khan Durrani in 2004.
Though the military land was transferred in the names of those who are either closely related to these two JUI-F leaders or are their relatives, the Revenue Department in DI Khan confirmed that both these leaders had at least 600 Kanals each in their personal possession.
A senior member Board of Revenue in the Frontier government was also allotted 400 Kanals of the same land for his role in this highly controversial allotment from the land earmarked for soldiers, who are given this land for their services and in line with the policy derived by the GHQ.
The allotment letters, relating to 1200 Kanals, were issued by the Army’s General Headquarters Adjutant General (Welfare and Rehabilitation Directorate), Rawalpindi under the signatures of Lt-Col Muhammad Zafar on behalf of the adjutant general and countersigned by Brigadier DWR-I Zafar Iqbal Shah on Oct 23rd 2004 — a little over two months prior to the deadline set for Musharraf’s stepping down as Army chief.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman could not be reached for comments despite all efforts. However, his party spokesman categorically said that there was no truth in this and that it was a vilification campaign launched against the party and its leader.
The spokesman said that the land was neither allotted in the name of the two leaders nor in the names of their close associates or relatives.
Former JUI chief minister Akram Khan Durrani, however, admitted that some of his close associates/relatives were allotted lands but he said he had nothing to do with those.
But the documents, available with The News, confirm that six men connected with Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Akram Durrani were allotted 200 Kanals each whereas a senior Revenue officer, serving in DI Khan, also acknowledged that the said land was actually in the possession of these two leaders.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s main ally in the MMA at that time Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the Jamaat-e-Islami, when approached, said that he and his party did not have the hint of this wheeling and dealing.
The documents show that whole of this land was allotted in Rakh Ghass, Tehsil and district Dera Imail Khan where the provincial government had allotted almost 136,000 Kanals of land to the Pakistan Army for its scheme under which the officers and JCOs and their families are allotted agriculture land of different sizes on the basis of their performance, seniority, sacrifice etc under a well determined formula.
Adjutant General’s Branch, W&R Directorate, in its six separate letters dated Oct 23, 2004 and clearly tagged as “restricted”, allotted 200 Kanals of agriculture land in Rakh Ghass D I Khan to each of the following beneficiaries:
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