LAHORE: The Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee has criticised ‘forced’ eviction of peasants from the federal government’s Jaranwala lands.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, a PKRC office-bearer said many peasants, including women and children, have been injured in the police operation continuing for the last three days to evict the families from 2,625 acres of state land in Chak 534-GB, Jaranwala, they had been ploughing since 1935.

So far crops and houses on 1,000 acres of land had been damaged by the forces, PKRC general secretary Farooq Tariq said.

According to him, the village comprised 30,000 souls and no family owned more than a couple of acres they made cultivable after hard labour in 1935 and the occupants were paying water rate as well as power and gas bills.

He claimed that the operation was launched without any notice and the use of brute state force destroying all housing and crops has pushed the poor peasants, including their women, children and elderly relatives, to live in the open sky.

He lamented that both the ruling and opposition parties’ elected representatives were deliberately closing their eyes to the sufferings of the peasants for the last three days.

Demanding an immediate end to the operation, he suggested that the government initiate a dialogue to resolve the issue.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2020