LAHORE, Sept 16: The Labour Party Pakistan has convened an all parties conference on Tuesday (today) to highlight the plight of tenants of state land.

The APC, scheduled to be held at the Lahore Press Club, will be attended by all mainstream political parties, including the PPP, the PML-N, the Tehrik-i-Insaaf and the Awami Tehrik, various trade unions, NGOs, intellectuals, besides representatives of the tenants from across the Punjab.

A group of the people who had signed lease agreement with the Rangers authorities will inform the participants the alleged coercive measures adopted by the authorities to force them “come to terms.”

The tenants are struggling for the last two years to get ownership rights of the lands they had been tilling since almost a century. Their struggle turned into a movement when the state agencies mishandled the issue and tried to crush it through suppressive measures.

Reports received from Okara military farms say that some tenants are willing to sign the lease agreement while some of those who had accepted the deal are now inclined to scrap it.

The government has reportedly withdrawn Rangers from around villages of tenants to back positions and has instead deployed police to offset the pressure build up after media highlighted the clashes between the tenants and the state agencies.