MULTAN, Sept 11: Official and non-official members of the Cotton Crop Management Group have cried out against alleged highhandedness of the army and Rangers. A grower member of the CCMG from Rahim Yar Khan alleged that the Desert Rangers had seized most part of the buildings of agriculture research centres in Rahim Yar Khan and Khanpur.

He said initially the Rangers took charge of a couple of rooms at the research centres with the claim that they had been temporarily setting up their office, but gradually they occupied a major part of their buildings. He said now the Rangers were constructing a school on the agricultural land meant for research in cotton, oilseed and sugarcane.

Knowing the military might, he said, the officials of the research centres were keeping mum but now the men in khaki had started occupying their residential quarters as well.

An agriculture department official complained that his vehicle had been forcibly ‘confiscated’ by some military authorities for official use.

Presiding over the CCMG meeting, agriculture secretary Maj Fayyaz Bashir assured the complainants that he would take up the matter with the concerned corners.

He informed the meeting that some time back an agriculture department vehicle was taken away by some military intelligence officials in Faisalabad, but when the matter was brought to his knowledge he managed to get back the vehicle with the help of the military authorities.