JALALABAD (PAN): A large number of people with disabilities on Tuesday locked the municipality during a protest against the department for what they said failing to retake land plots allotted to them from powerful grabbers in eastern Nangarhar province.
They accused the mayor and his department of being complicit in depriving them of the plots issued to them through a presidential decree.
The disabled warned they would not stay calm until their plots were retaken from the illegal occupants.
Their union leader Masoud Safi told Pajhwok Afghan News President Hamid Karzai had allotted one plot each to people with disabilities under the Qasamabad township scheme in Jalalabad through a decree, but the municipality was yet to distribute the land to them over the past many years.
He said they had legal ownership documents of the plots which he said had been grabbed by some powerful individuals who were refusing to surrender the land.
He said the disabled people have the right to be distributed 1,300 plots in the township.
Another protesting disabled person, Abdul Wali, said those who had occupied their land enjoyed close links with the municipality and the mayor.
Mayor Lal Agha Kakar said a delegation had been appointed to resolve the issue. He promised his department would practically work to get the plots distributed to at least some of the disabled people as of Wednesday.
He said initially they would distribute 488 plots out of the total 1,300 plots and the rest would be distributed when the town was to be expanded.
But the protesting people rejected his promise, saying they had been waiting over the past eight years to get the plots.
myn/ma
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