How the Overseas Pakistanis Commission works

Established to give overseas Pakistanis a route into the system without flying home. Punjab's commission is the most developed; other provinces have equivalents at varying stages.

What it does

• Receives complaints online from abroad, without your physical presence
• Summons revenue officials, police and society representatives to answer
• Coordinates between departments that would otherwise ignore correspondence
• Follows up and reports back on progress
• Handles property, police, revenue and civil administration matters

How to use it well

• Complain in writing, online, with a complete document set attached
• State one clear request — restore possession, register an FIR, correct the record
• Keep the complaint number and follow up at fixed intervals
• Run it in parallel with legal steps, not instead of them

Its record is substantial. Punjab's commission has received about 35,000 complaints and resolved roughly 26,000, with property worth over Rs 100 billion recovered from land grabbers in a two-year period.