DERA GHAZI KHAN, Jan 5: Scores of people staged a protest demonstration outside local cement factory against the seizure of their land by the factory administration here on Monday. After the demo, the factory withdrew from the land.

Dawn learnt the factory “illegally occupied” 10 acres of different farmers on Jan 2, 2009, with the help of police and told the farmers that the compensation had been deposited with a Lahore bank at the rate of Rs2,500 per acre.

Pakistan People’s Party and Seraiki Lok Party activists from Dera Ghazi Khan, Adil Peer, Shah Saddar Din, Mastoi and Shadan Lund gathered at Cement Factory Chowk on Indus highway and launched a demo on motorcycles, jeeps and cars.

The farmers also joined the demonstration. They chanted slogans against the owner of factory and district police.

PPP leader Irfan Khosa said that factory authorities had not fulfilled their legal and moral obligations regarding the local people of the area. Instead of giving jobs, drinking water, roads, schools and health facilities to the local residents, the factory was depriving them of their only source of livelihood.

Fazal-i-Rab Lund, Seraiki Lok Party leader, demanded that the factory vacate the land or the supply of cement would be blocked on Indus Highway. When the administration learned about the demo, they vacated the land.

TRAPPED: Two children and three women were trapped under the debris of a wall which collapsed during the procession of Muharram in Sakhi Sarwar.