KARACHI, May 25: The Coordination Committee for Solidarity with Okara Muzzareen, condemning the torture and harassment of, and firing on Okara farmers have demanded that the culprits, no matter who they are, be brought to book immediately.

The committee was formed at a meeting of various civil society organizations held at the PMA House to discuss the issue of the farmers of Okara military farms.

It condemned the siege of Okara villages and demanded constitution of an independent commission to hold a high-level inquiry into the matter.

The committee declared that leasehold of the lands was an inalienable right of the farmers who had been tilling there for the past 80 years, as the lease of the farms had already expired and no new leaseholder had been inducted.

The committee condemned the torture, intimidation and other coercive methods adopted to break the will of the struggling farmers. It also condemned the harassment of the activists of civil society organizations that have expressed solidarity with the farmers.

Earlier, Karamat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), explaining the issue at the meeting attended by intellectuals, political workers, trade unionists and representatives of civil society organizations, said that the lease term of the state lands spread over 68,000 acres to the military had already expired, and legally, morally and ethically the land belonged to the sitting tenants.

He said the military farms did not hold the leases of the lands and were trying to change the status of the sitting tenants from “tenants” to “patedars”, ie, term leaseholders who could be evicted from these lands at any time.

He said that the state machinery, particularly rangers, was being used to coerce the tenants and several villages had been put under siege and water and power supply to them had been disconnected.

“Even injured people and pregnant women and have been denied exit from the villages to seek medical assistance, due to which at least one pregnant woman and her child have died,” said Mr Karamat.

“Leaders and activists of the Anjuman-i-Muzareen are being tortured and coerced into signing papers of the term lease, and over 1,700 FIRs have been registered against the farmers and their women,” he went on.

He further said that the HRCP and other civil society organizations that sent their representatives to the area to express solidarity with the struggling framers were being harassed and maligned.

The coordination committee consists of Karamat Ali, Uzma Noorani, Ramzan Memon, Rahat Saeed, Shahid Faiz, Ejaz Ahmad, Anis Haroon, Hassan Athar, Noor Nabi Baloch, Javed Iqbal, Mohammad Ali Shah, Zahid Farooq, Liaquat Sahi, M. B. Naqvi, Kaneez Fatima, Saleem Reza, and Jalil Shah. The committee will meet on Tuesday to formulate a strategy for future line of action.

FARMERS SUPPORTED: The Forum for Democracy has strongly condemned the siege of Okara villagers by the rangers. In a statement the forum said that the peasants who had been tilling the lands for over 80 years had an inalienable right to get those lands transferred in their names. It also condemned the firing on and torture and harassment of Okara peasants by the rangers. The forum urged the political parties to support the struggling farmers inside and outside the parliament.