HYDERABAD, Dec 17: A group of poor women, including widows, staged a demonstration outside the press club here on Tuesday against the land mafia.

The protesters, Kulsoom, Jameela, Tasleem, Firdous, Shahnaz and the others told journalists that they were destitute women, some of them were widows and others were abandoned by their husbands.

They said that they had appealed to President Gen Pervez Musharraf to provide shelter to them in the proposed General Musharraf Colony, for which they had received letters, which were under process.

They said that the land of the proposed colony was a property of the provincial irrigation department, which had been asked by the authorities concerned to submit a report in this regard.

They, however, said that the land mafia, through armed hoodlums, had taken over the possession of the said land.

They appealed to the regional police officer, Abdul Rauf Yousufzai, to eject the land mafia from the said land as it was meant for the poor, destitute and homeless women.