TOBA TEK SINGH: Gojra city police arrested on Sunday eight out of 44 Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) activists named in a first information report for attacking and injuring five policemen.

A police team had conducted raids on Aug 9 to restrain PAT activists from going to Lahore to attend the party’s ‘martyrs day’ on Aug 10. But the workers had attacked and pelted police with stones as a result of which SHO Aftab Siddiqui and four policemen were seriously wounded while a police vehicle was also severely damaged.

Police arrested eight of those activists named in the FIR, including Tanweerul Hasan, Muhammad Bilal, Muhammad Usman, Faiz Ahmad, Khalid Mahmood, Shahid Baboo and Malik Ghulam Abbas, while raids were being conducted to arrest the remaining nominated.

Protest

Small cultivators from Mamdana Khurd and Chah Hamid Wala, Kamalia tehsil, staged a demonstration on Sunday against the irrigation and drainage authority officials. They alleged the authority had allegedly unjustifiably suspended their water supply and instead supplied it to influential farmers of other areas.

Farmers told reporters they received water for irrigation from Burala canal but for several months they had been deprived of their quota of supply.

Criticised

Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat chief Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi criticised Dr Tahirul Qadri for giving a deadline of 48 hours for fulfilment of his 10-point agenda.

Talking to reporters at Jamia Farooqia in Kamalia on Sunday, Ludhianvi said Dr Qadri was willing to change the Constitution to safeguard the rights of the minorities, but people of the country would never allow any changes in the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2014