MUZAFFARGARH: A case had been registered against the owners of the Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills with the Alipur Police Station on charge of torturing two sugarcane farmers for demanding payment for their crop from the suspects.

Mian Ilyas Mehraj, Mian Abdullah Ilyas and Haseeb Ilyas, the owners of the mills, and Admin Officer Altaf have been nominated in the case. Mian Ilyas is brother-in-law of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

The farmers, Muhammad Asif and Riaz, in the first information report (FIR), told the police they had sold sugarcane to the Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills in tehsil Jatoi in 2015/16 and they had documentary record of the receipt of sugarcane issued by the mills.

The owners had promised them to pay cash in July 2017 but when they went to the mills two days ago, they were kept locked in a room for four hours.

The farmers claimed that the nominated suspects as well as their staff tortured them, threatened them with dire consequences, tore away the documents they had got with them and snatched their mobile phones and cash from their pockets.

They somehow contacted District Police Officer Awais Ahmad Malik who ordered the station house officer of the Alipur Police Station to take action. The police have registered the case but didn’t not arrest the suspects.

The Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills was shifted from Nankana Sahib to Muzaffargarh illegally in 2015. After a year of its running, the mills was declared defaulter by the cane commissioner and labour department because of non-payments to the farmers. In 2017, the sugar mills was closed by the order of Supreme Court.

Hundreds of sugarcane farmers are waiting for their payments.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2017