THATTA: A forest officer on Saturday got around 400 peasants, including women and children, booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act on charges of grabbing forest land and beating up the department’s employees during an operation to retrieve the land.

Sujawal range forest officer Mohammed Ramzan Shar got an FIR registered under Sections 355 and 324 of the Pakistan Penal Code and 6/7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) at the Banno police station in Sujwal district against around 400 villagers living in the Mulchand forest area.

The complainant said that the villagers were found busy ploughing the forest land ignoring repeated warnings conveyed to them by the forest department. He said that on Saturday, officials and employees of the Mulchand forest administration tried to retrieve the land but were beaten up by the villagers.

He said an escort force from the Sujawal police station was called in for assistance but the villagers also reacted violently to retain their illegal possession of the land.After registration of the FIR, police started raids on the houses of the nominated suspects, including Usman Kandra, Moosa Jamari, Bachal Jamari, Gul Chang and Ali Mohammad Kandra to arrest them. It was not immediately known as to how many of the booked suspects were picked up.

Bachal Jamari, Moosa Jamari and some other suspects told this reporter by phone that the action against villagers was being taken at the behest of an influential figure of the area who wanted to get their ancestors’ land vacated.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2015

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