Land mafias loot overseas Pakistanis, the state looks away

LONDON: Thousands of British Pakistanis have complained that their properties have been taken over in their Pakistani cities of origin in their absence, by organised crime mafias and the state of Pakistan is offering them little or no help.
The complainants are appealing to the government of Pakistan, especially the Punjab government, to take measures to end the harassment of the British Pakistani property owners in Pakistan. At the same time, they are unanimously of the view that Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary should take suo moto notice of this issue. The CJP, during his last visit to London, had assured the victims that he would look into their complaints.
After Jang London reporter Asif Dar highlighted the scandal of the real estates being taken over by mafia gangs across Pakistani cities from where more than a million Pakistanis had migrated to the United Kingdom, hundreds of victims had written and visited Jang offices in London to register their complaints and voice their concerns over the complete lack of support in Pakistan when their properties were being taken over by the members of the organised mafias.
Some of the biggest investors in Pakistan real estate market are overseas Pakistanis. Expatriates from the Middle-eastern countries invest in Pakistan because they don’t have rights in Arabic countries and their Sheikhs can take over their properties and bank balance at their whim. And there is nothing the hapless workers who are considered second-class citizens can do about it as local laws effectively support the indigenous.
Pakistanis settled in Western countries are not the major spenders in the real estate market but thousands of them buy properties every year because investment in Pakistan’s property market is even more profitable than in the UK.
Some of the major spenders who snap up properties worth millions are those who use their black money earned in countries such as the UK to legalise it in

Pakistan and Mirpur, Azad Kashmir. Those who do so include the businessmen avoiding paying taxes and have unregulated tills in their businesses but this is the class that has no problem with the law or the system because they are rich and have influence and spend money in major urban hotspots such as Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Mirpur where they are fully facilitated.
Unfortunately, it’s the hard-working, low-budget class that invests their hard-earned money in Pakistan to keep filial connection with their motherland that faces the most problems. Most of these investments are made in small urban and rural areas upon the advice of their loved ones, relatives and crooked officials. Almost 80 percent of the complainants who have been robbed of their properties are from Punjab, where it is generally believed the police are more corrupt than anywhere else in Pakistan.
Based on the complaints received by Jang so far, it can be deduced that there are at least five different kinds of mafia groups active at all levels of the society who gain control of the properties, taking advantage of the absence of real owners from Pakistan. Local governments, the police and the judicial system support the machinations of mafia members as they know well how to play with the system.
The victims, many of them are engaged in protracted legal battles and some have already lost any kind of hope, have complained that the first category of the gang involves relatives who conspire with criminals to get their hands on the properties. It happens when relatives are either made in charges of the properties or given power of attorneys. It has been complained that these relatives then bribe the police and the land authorities to get the papers shifted on their names.
The second category of gang comprises the police and local courts. Police gets bribes and does everything in their power to frustrate the victims of the fraud and stay on the side of the conspirators. The police do so because they are aware that the foreign national victims will leave the country sooner or later and in the end the relatives settled locally will continue to pay them. The corrupt culture is rife at the local court levels where problems are created for the complainants and in many cases their paper work is dislocated and their case files disappear or the papers go missing.
The third category of mafia is property dealers and brokers who have a crucial role in the purchase of the properties. In some cases, the property dealers produce completely fake papers with the help of the local land authorities and sold properties, which do not exist. In other cases, they sell the right property but later on use their henchmen to get control of the property through the system, taking share of half of the property from the land occupation mafia yet continuing to do business as decent men. Brokers also play dirty tricks in the wheeling and dealing and have duped hundreds of people by giving them false advice.
At least 20 complainants pointed their fingers at the existence of “pamphlets mafia”. According to them, after having taken over their properties or getting them into legal difficulties, their relatives and the property dealers distribute pamphlets propagating that the property owners from overseas are of poor moral character and their investment is not made through halal money. Pamphlets are distributed to character-assassinate the overseas owners of these properties, alleging that the owners sell alcohol in Britain, womanised and earned money through betting in casinos. In some cases, these pamphlets are also produced in courts against the victims.
And finally, there is another type of mafia in operation, known as “Jinn mafia”. This includes running campaigns that the property is jinxed, have jinns and evil spirits residing there. Such scare tactics are used to damage the rentability of the property and damage its value. The aim is to then buy the property from the owner at a throwaway price. It happens when the rightful owner comes to the conclusion that his property is virtually un-rentable and he has no choice but to throw it away.