Mansehra residents protest land encroachment.

MANSEHRA -- The residents, including local body representatives, have warned that they will take to the streets if the communication and works department doesn't retrieve the illegally-occupied land along the Mansehra-Lassan Nawab Road.

'The communication and works department recently carried out a survey and found Manserha's main road links with Pulrah and Lassan Nawab to be encroached upon by housing authorities and traders, but action against encroachers is still awaited,' Pulrah general councillor Habibur Rehman Tanoli told reporters here on Tuesday.

Accompanied by a group of residents, Mr Tanoli said the encroachment of the Mansehra-Lassan Nawab Road, which was already in bad shape, had inconvenienced travellers.

He said the road had many unplanned and unapproved housing schemes.

The councillor said the chief engineer of the communication and works department had ordered the survey, while a team led by SDO Sajjad Khan pointed out the land's illegal occupation, but even then, no action had been initiated against encroachers.

Resident BakhtiarTanoli said the locals would stage a sit-in outside the deputy commissioner's offices if the land wasn't recovered.

He said the tehsil municipal administration hadn't licenced any housing authority in the city and its suburbs.

The resident said the communication and works department should launch an anti-encroachment crackdown.

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