Land Grabbers List Submitted To Government

More than 1500 acres of land have been grabbed by powerful in Bagrami district, Bagram chief district said.

Sayed Shamsuddin Qari Zada, Bagram chief district declared that earlier, thousands acres of land have been grabbed in several parts of the district but most of them were returned to the government’s property.

Qari Zada emphasized that if the government and responsible authorities do not seriously cooperate, retaking the grabbed lands would be difficult.

Bagrami district is one of Kabul’s biggest districts which the confiscation of land grabbing has been unprecedented.

Bagrami chief district said that the list of all land grabbers has been submitted to the government but he refused to name any of them as land grabbers.

Previously, the responsible authorities have committed to try to regain the grabbed lands but it has been seen that the commitments have not been fulfilled so far.

Since 2002, land disputes are a primary motive of conflict in Afghanistan. Rapid urbanization population pressures, displacement and resettlement, and rising land value have increased competition for land since 2002.

Less than 34 percent of Afghanistan’s land has been surveyed and legally registered, leaving the rest vulnerable to land-grabs, the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee said in a report.

In a country where 80 percent of the population relies on agriculture, the Afghanistan Land Authority has recorded complaints of 240,000 hectares of land usurped in the last decade.

Complainants confront a system rife with forgery and bribery, said the report by the combined international-Afghan body.