More than 0.15 million people confined to their houses in 19 villages of the Okara agriculture farm on Sunday, and hundreds of animals might be died due to non-availability of fodder as the Rangers and Police have cordoned off all the ways leading to these villages and there is no permission for them to come out of their villages.
Police have arrested 25 farmers from Okara Cantonment, and registered a case against 100 protestors while three leaders of Farmers/Tenants Association (Anjuman Mazareen) Ghulam Rasul, Mohammad Altaf, and Gulzar Ahmed were detained in the Sahiwal Prison for three months under MPO-3, and disconnected the their phone lines.
"We have released all the female demonstrators, and arrested 11 farming tenants under MPO-16 while another three were detained under MPO-3 for inciting the farmers for demonstration, and attacking the law enforcement agencies", said DPO Okara.
Despite taking all preventive measures, thousands of farmers and their families staged demonstrations in Chak No 12/4-L and 10-4/L to condemn the Rangers and Police operation in these areas. A large number of farmers were arrested, who made the Military lands arable, he added.
"This incident took place after issuance of a report of Human Right Watch on farmers rights serving on military lands in Pakistan. We would continue our struggle till the release of our leaders and achievement of objective of allotment of land as per agreement because the government had promised to allot 50 percent of land to farmers, who make it cultivable", said Noor Nabi, a leader of Anuman Mazareen while addressing the demonstrators.
"Our 80 people are in police custody, who are being tortured for providing information to foreign media and helping in compiling a report by Human Rights Watch against the Pakistan Army," said Farooq Tariq, secretary-general of Pakistan Labour Party.
He said the HRW report has exposed the designs of the Army and its excesses and atrocities against the 0.15 million farmers who had made the barren land arable but now they are being ejected from the land unlawfully.
Comments
Comments are closed.