PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday directed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to ramp up efforts for removing encroachments along canals and rivers across the province and submit a report to the court. A two-member bench comprising PHC Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Syed M Attique Shah directed that the anti-encroachment drive should be carried out across the board and no pick and choose policy should be adopted. The bench observed that mafias had carried out massive encroachments along the rivers and canals. The bench wondered as to how permission had been granted to those elements for such illegal construction.