At the top of Pakistan’s property ladder sits the army, which has developed vast housing estates in all major cities. Although these were meant to be for retired officers and their relatives (and never for just soldiers), the plots are often sold to the highest bidders. It’s a lucrative business: People know that governments come and go, but the army is here to stay, and its housing societies, too.

That doesn’t make them a safe investment, though. One army-run estate in Lahore was designed for the families of disabled soldiers or soldiers killed in service. People invested billions of rupees to buy property there at subsidized rates; an estimated 13 billion rupees have disappeared. One of the accused is a brother of the former Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. In a rare flourish, one of the Supreme Court judges hearing a related case told the army’s lawyer, “It seems that you people run the business by using widows and martyrs as a shield, and you pocket royalties in their name.”

When Gen. Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s last army chief, retired, he was awarded 88 acres of land — the nation’s gift for his services, I guess. The land was meant for farming. But Mr. Sharif serves in Saudi Arabia as the head of some vague force that will supposedly rid us of terrorism. He doesn’t have time for farming.

Land grabbing in Pakistan probably started with the birth of the country. People made fortunes either by occupying or claiming properties left behind by people who fled during Partition in 1947. You can still find entire estates and villages named after bureaucrats, who had basically allotted them to themselves. Much of this land was acquired on the pretense of agricultural development; it has become gated communities and golf courses.

Before he was elected prime minister, Mr. Khan promised to build five million low-cost houses if he came to power. An initial groundbreaking ceremony was held only this month.

Mr. Khan owns nearly 40 acres on the top of a hill in Islamabad, which he says he bought after selling property in London — which he’d bought with money he made as a star cricket player. Any number of laws were broken so that he could build a mansion there. A special federal commission was set up (after Mr. Khan took office) just for the purpose of regularizing that arrangement.

No commission has been set up, though, to regularize the housing rights of the residents of E-12 or Gharibabad , or Pakistan’s soon-to-be-homeless.

Mohammed Hanif (@mohammedhanif) is the author of the novels “A Case of Exploding Mangoes,” “Our Lady of Alice Bhatti” and “Red Birds.” He is a contributing opinion writer.

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