LAHORE, June 16: The Labour Party held a peaceful demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club here on Monday to show solidarity with tenants of the Okara military farms.

Similar demonstrations were also held in 35 other district headquarters in the Punjab as decision to this effect had been taken by the party’s national committee in its meeting last week.

Carrying banners and placards, the demonstrators shouted slogans against the Rangers for laying a siege to the tenants’ villages on the farms for the last many months. Some of them read: “Stop killing of tenants”, “Release arrested tenants”, and “Ownership or death”.

They also demanded setting up of a judicial commission to solve the military farms dispute.

Speaking to protesters, party’s secretary-general Farooq Tariq said the Rangers had taken into custody at least 133 tenants from pickets around the farms in just one month. He alleged that eight people, including a woman, died for want of medical aid during the last 10 days as people were afraid of taking to their ailing relatives to Okara for the fear of arrest.

Mr Tariq condemned PTV authorities for, what he said, screening a one-sided report on the Rangers-tenants standoff to appease the army.

He demanded immediate release of Sarwar Mujahid, an Urdu daily’s correspondent, and tenants’ leaders, including Younus Iqbal, Christopher John, Faheem Ahmad, Sajid Baloch, Daud Masih, Rashid Masih and Munshi Faqiria.