May 17th, 2021
By Ahmed Saeed
LAHORE
Veteran politician Javed Hashmi has accused the government of political victimization as the district administration in Multan launched an early morning operation on Monday to demolish buildings owned by the senior politician allegedly built on state land.
In his video message on social media, the PML-N leader said that the police and other law enforcement agencies surrounded their properties and blocked all roads leading to his residence. Hashmi also claimed that the police demolished the boundary walls of a school owned by his daughter Maimoona Hashmi.
According to the Multan district government, the anti-encroachment operation was under taken to retrieve state land belonging to the Auqaf Department illegally occupied by Hashmi and his family.
However, the senior PML-N leader rebutted the district administration’s claims, stating that the properties belonged to him. “I have not encroached any land belonging to the Auqaf Department and the properties legally belong to by my family,” he said. The action comes days after the anti-establishment statements made by the veteran politician in which he demanded that the Chief of Army Staff General Bajwa step down from his post. His party PML-N was quick to distance itself from his statement, terming it Hashmi’s ‘personal opinion’.
This is not the first time the authorities have taken action against Hashmi over claims to retrieving Auqaaf’s land from his “illegal” possession. In 2012, then PML-N’s Punjab government also took a similar action against Hashmi just months after he left the party to join the rival PTI party.