THATTA: The land of Chiliya point, a Ramsar wetland around the legendary Lake Keenjhar has been occupied by an influential group of land mafia. The signboard of the picnic point has been put up at the site with the purpose of grabbing large-scale land of the Ramsar Site around the lake.
Reliable sources disclosed that a few influential land grabbers wanted to set up a housing scheme and a picnic point on the land of Chiliya point. In the aftermath of illegal occupation of the land members of Keenjhar Bachayo Committee- Save Keenjhar Committee met District Commissioner Thatta Usman Tanveer here on Thursday to apprise him of occupation who then directed Assistant commissioner and area Mukhtiarkar for retrieving the land and taking strict action against those land grabbers
Senior Journalist of Thatta Mahbob Brohi said that; The Keenjhar lake and its surrounding land had been declared a Ramsar site and a wildlife sanctuary in the Ramsar Convention on the conservation of wetland held at Ramsar a county of Iran in 1948.
Over the years it has been an abode to thousands of migratory birds and any sort of construction, cultivation, or digging is strictly prohibited on the site according to the rules established in that convention; He added.
Members of the committee said that; Keenjhar Lake and its surrounding wetlands had been a source of livelihood for the poor population of the district and any sort of occupation around it would eventually deprive them of that source but they would not let that happen