Senate body to prepare report: Okara mly farms issue
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, Aug 17: Members of a subcommittee of the Senate standing committee on human rights will visit Okara military farms on Wednesday to get firsthand knowledge of the situation arising out of the clashes between tenants and Rangers, a source told Dawn on Tuesday.
The subcommittee was formed on June 25 to probe the loss of life and other issues of the Okara farms tenants with the direction to submit a "confidential report." The committee members wanted to know the number of tenants killed in the armed operation by the Rangers officials, the details of their post-mortem reports and the results of investigations and inquiries.
The subcommittee is headed by Khalid Ranjha while Nighat Mirza, Hameedullah Jan, Farhatullah Babar and Dr Mohammad Said are its members. The source said only three members of the subcommittee would visit the Okara military farms on Wednesday as Nighat Mirza and Dr Said had expressed their inability to visit the farms.
A US-based Human Rights Watch group, in a report, issued in New York in July, accused the Pakistani military authorities of "torturing farmers" in the Punjab. The report was, however, rejected by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan who termed it an interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan.
The 54-page HRW report titled "Soiled Hands: The Pakistan Army's Repression of the Punjab Farmer's Movement," accuses the military of subjecting farmers in Okara farms to a campaign of murder, arbitrary detention, torture and summary dismissals from employment.
