CHITRAL: According to informed sources 90 percent civil cases lodged with the courts in Chitral relate to inheritance matters. The surge in these cases has been witnessed in the last few years, before which there would be only an occasional genuine case of such matter in the court. The prodding by some lawyers and other vested interests who want their share of the pie or at least enjoy seeing acrimony within happy families due to personal reasons are the main causes of launching often baseless inheritance cases, wasting precious time of the honourable courts.
Such cases have caused a wedge between many a family who hitherto enjoyed healthy relationships have turned ill wishers of each other because of this phenomenon. The irony is that inheritance cases dating back to four or five generations are even being lodged. According to observers inheritance cases against the inheritors of Mehtar Aman Ul Mulk and Sir Shuja Ul Mulk have also been reportedly launched by some claimants.
The present spate of frenzy in lodging inheritance cases can be related to the early era of Z.A Bhutto, when tenants were pitted against landowners and shop renters against shop owners. This caused a sudden turmoil and social relationships were strained to the extent that a wedge of hatred was created between different sections of the society. The dueling parties were both losers while the lawyers dealing with such cases turned out to be biggest winners in the process. Such an experiment was only carried out in Chitral, while in Sindh the biggest landlords were left untouched and enjoyed ministries in Bhutto’s govt.
Although the onslaught on the social stability of Chitral could not be sustained for long, but the scars it left are ripe till today. It is feared that the prodding of unabated inheritance cases through invisible and visible sources both to create a general turmoil and shake the social fabric of Chitral may be a repetition of the same experiment like that of the early seventies, as all such experiments are tried out with Chitral first.? .. CN report, 25 Feb 2020?