April 18, 2006	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 1427

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Multan, April 17: Tension griped the Army Welfare Trust stud farms in Pakpattan on Monday as police reportedly rounded up around 30 tenants who were protesting against their ‘forced’ ejection from the lands they claim to have been cultivating for over a century.

The farm is situated in Mauza Bail Ganj, some 15 km away from Pakpattan city on the Gonga Hayat-Haveli Lakha road, in the jurisdiction of Chak Bedi police station.

Over a hundred tenant families had been staging a sit-in along the Haveli Lakha road since Monday morning to press the farm authorities to give them the occupancy of the lands from where they were ejected some 22 years ago in 1984. The protesters, in fact, had been on protest drive for the last three months.

Iqbal Baloch, a tenants’ representative, told Dawn that the administration later on called their leaders for a dialogue at the Faridnagar police station. He said some 11 tenants led by their president Yunas Kharral visited the police station for negotiations but they were detained.

The news of their detention provoked the protesters who blocked the Haveli Lakha road, causing suspension of vehicular traffic. At this, a police contingent led by DSP Anwar Chishti arrived there and allegedly rounded up two dozen protesters after a mild baton charge.

When contacted, the DSP admitted the arrest of some 20 tenants for they had ‘beaten up’ some passengers aboard a bus during the road blockade. He claimed that the tenants’ leaders had been detained for creating law and order problem inside the Faridnagar police station when they were separated into two groups.

The tenants however refuted the charges levelled by the DSP and said that nothing of the sort had happened. “First, the administration deceived us in the name of negotiations and then launched a crackdown on our men, women and children,” they added.

Reports reaching here revealed that women and children of the tenants’ families were protesting even at midnight. Over 100 tenants’ families were banished from the stud farms some 22 years ago, but they collectively regained possession of some 35 acres of land last year and cultivated wheat on it.

They row started when the stud farm management allegedly attempted to harvest wheat.