Reports said that officials of the Islamic Emirate have recovered tens of thousands of acres of state land from powerful men who usurped them during the past twenty years of corrupt regimes. In the country’s eastern Jalalabad, southern provinces of Kandahar and Ghazni and many other parts of the country, the related officials reclaimed wide areas occupied by powerful individuals during the past regimes. Only, in the capital city of Ghazni, recent reports said that around 40,000 acres of state-lands have been wrested back from land mafia recently. Hundreds of powerful men were said to have been involved in the usurpation of tens of thousands of acres of state lands in different districts of the province, such as Deh Khudaidad, Shaikh Abdul Salam, Talkhazar, Kaihan, Ali Lala, Asfandi, Zargar, Matak Sangan and other desert-based sites. During the last six months, the eleven-member Commission for Prevention of Land Usurpation jerked into action, initially focusing on the usurped lands in Ghazni with its activities beginning in 18 districts as a priority. Land mafia mostly included former government officials, who have not only grabbed lands without residential units but also demolished public places and distributed among themselves. The Land Grab Prevention Commission should not only suffice in recovering lands usurped by the land-grabbers but should also reclaim state-lands on which powerful individuals, such as former cabinet ministers, lawmakers and other ex-government officials have constructed buildings. The commission, comprising representatives from police, court and prosecutors’ office should also arrest individuals behind usurpation and bring them to justice. Also, master planning should be implemented in the townships built recklessly anywhere in the country’s major cities, particularly in the capital Kabul. Illegal occupants are everywhere in the country, some have made forged documents, some claim the lands had been left as their ancestors legacy, while some forcefully grabbed the lands, but this is the responsibility of the commission to intensify its efforts to sort out how the lands have been grabbed and how they were able to return the entire usurped lands. Let us join hands with the organs concerned to uproot all kinds of corruption and eliminate the main elements behind it, and do our best to have a free corruption and developed country.
