September 05, 2008	Friday	Ramazan 04, 1429

TOBA TEK SINGH, Sept 4: A Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader said on Thursday he had informed the chief minister and a Revenue Board member that hundreds of landless farmers were being forced to vacate the state land they had been cultivating for the last many years.

At a news conference, M Hamza, member of the PML-N’s central committee and former member of the National Assembly, said he had written to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Revenue Board’s senior member Safdar Javed Syed that hundreds of farmers of Toba district had been cultivating the state land since 1962 or 1970 after getting it on lease, but now deputy district officers for revenue had directed them to vacate the land. He said the local revenue officials’ order would cost tenants millions of rupees because they had standing crops on this land.

Hamza said he contacted the district coordination officer and Gojra deputy district officer for revenue in this regard, but they told him that the provincial government had ordered vacation of the state land. He said he had asked Sharif and Syed to cancel the order and allow the tenants farming on this land.