In early September 2003, over 30 families in the Shirpur area of Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul were forcibly evicted from their homes and then their houses were destroyed in front of them. Shirpur is close to WA Khan, which is a luxury area so some ministers and high level authorities are trying to remove the houses of poor people from there and built their own buildings. Many of those evicted were badly injured during the operation as their flimsy houses crashed down around them. According to residents and witnesses, the chief of police of Kabul (Basir Salangi) himself led the operation. Miloon Kothari, UN-appointed, independent rapporteur on housing rights said to reporters: Essentially what we have found there is that ministers and people at the highest level are involved in occupying land and in demolishing the homes of poor people. A number of ministers... including the minister of defence are directly involved in this kind of occupation and dispossession of poor people, some of whom have been there for 25 to 30 years. The very people who are responsible for maintaining law and order and responsible for ensuring that these people have their rights, appear to be the violators. Following the exposure of the issue, Mr. Karzai removed Basir Salangi from his post and appointed another well-known criminal warlord called Gen. Baba Jan as chief of Kabul police! Afghanistan: Land-Grab Scandal In Kabul Rocks The Government By Ron Synovitz A United Nations housing expert is calling for the removal of Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and other senior Afghan officials implicated in a scandal over the seizure of real estate in Kabul. But some of the accused officials say they have not done anything illegal. Prague, 16 September 2003 (RFE/RL) -- The recent bulldozing of houses in a Kabul neighborhood to build private homes for senior Afghan officials is growing into an embarrassing scandal for the UN-backed Afghan Transitional Authority. About 20 families in the Sherpur District of the Afghan capital -- an exclusive neighborhood close to the city center -- have been forced to leave the mud-brick houses they had built in the area over the last two decades. A critical report by a nongovernmental organization, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, has named 29 senior officials and other powerful Afghan personalities who received plots of land in Sherpur for nominal fees. Included on the list are six cabinet ministers, the mayor of Kabul, the governor of the Afghan National Bank, and two former militia commanders. Among the most prominent names on the list are Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Education Minister Yunis Qanooni. Both are leaders within Jamiat-i-Islami, the political wing of a former Northern Alliance faction. Jamiat-i-Islami seized de facto control of Kabul after the Taliban regime fled the city but before the International Security Assistance Force was deployed there. The legitimacy of the NGO report has been strengthened by a separate report by Miloon Kothari, a United Nations special rapporteur on housing and land rights, who recently spent several weeks in Kabul. The report by Kothari accuses Fahim -- and other senior cabinet members -- of active collusion in official land seizures. Kothari says those involved should be removed: Fahim, the minister of defense, is directly involved in this kind of occupation and dispossession. And ministers that are directly involved have to be removed. Fahim has not commented publicly on the accusations or the calls for his removal. Spurred by the media attention the two critical reports have received, Afghan Transitional Authority Chairman Hamid Karzai`s spokesman, Jawad Luddin, yesterday announced that an official investigation is being launched. The presidential office has appointed a commission to investigate the housing problem in Sherpur where houses of people were dest

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