LAHORE, April 15: The Anjuman Mazareen, Punjab, will defend the tenancy rights of military farmlands in the provincial metropolis and resist its takeover by the Defence Housing Authority or any other organisation.

An announcement to this effect was made at a meeting of the association held at the Naya Jaindra Military Farms situated opposite the Green City and behind the Park View Housing Society, surrounded by Phases 5, 6 and 7 of the DHA on Burki Road in Lahore Cantonment on Sunday. About 300 tenants of the farms attended the meeting.

At the meeting, Anjuman’s Punjab Vice-president, Mian Muhammad Ashraf said the government should give up the idea of ejecting tenants from the farmland, and consider grant of ownership rights to them because they were cultivating it for the past 130 years. He said the Anjuman would launch a province-wide protest movement if any attempt was made to eject the tenants by force.

Pakistan Kissan Rabata Committee Secretary-General Farooq Tariq said unscrupulous elements wanted to deprive 400 tenant families, cultivating military farmland in seven villages of the area, of their livelihood. These elements, he said, wanted to use the land for developing housing colonies.

Tenants’ representatives said they would resist the attempts of the land mafia to eject them from their land. They demanded the military should hand over the farm lands to tenants.

The tenants who spoke on the occasion included M Hanif, Jaffar Iqbal, Rana Aslam, Maqsood Mujahid, Haji Anwar, M Sardar, Haji Niaz Ali and Abdul Hameed.