ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: The Anjuman Mazarain Punjab (AMP) has condemned redeployment of Rangers at the Okara military farms during this weekend, said a press release.

The AMP chairman, Liaquat Ali, has pointed out that hundreds of Rangers troops arrived in Okara from Lahore and have taken up positions within the Okara military farms headquarters for the time being.

Mr Ali said the tenants on Okara military farm resisted the attempts in the past by rangers to extort cash rents and would do so again if coercion was employed again by the authorities.

He also noted with regrets that the Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR) has confirmed that the army intended to purchase 24,000 acres of provincial government land including Okara, Lahore and Bengali military farms despite having defaulted on rent payments to the provincial government for over 60 years.

He said the tenants on other state farms were also withholding payment of cash rents or harvest shares to the authorities and that this trend could be expected to intensify in the future.

The AMP president said the organization was steadfast on its demand for ownership rights and demanded that Chief Minister Pervez Elahi should materialize his commitments to handover state land to the landless.

Mr Ali pointed out that the AMP would soon be organizing a national level peasant convention in which prominent peasant movements such as the Hashtanagar Movement in the NWFP, Azad Hari Union in Sindh, and the Buzgar Committee in Balochistan would be present so that a nationwide movement for land reform could be initiated.

He said the AMP’s historic struggle would continue until all landless tenants across the country were given land.

In the end, Mr Ali pointed out that the army’s refusal to give in to AMP’s demand, supported by numerous groups across the country, continued to give the army a bad name.