MULTAN, May 8: The Okara police have arrested nine more military farms’ tenants during the last 24 hours.

Manzoor, his son Imran, Zafar Iqbal Janjua and Abdul Razzaq, residents of Chak 44/3-R, were taken into custody by the police at a picket they had set up near bridge Ganair on the Lower Bari Doab canal.

Naeem Pal of Chak 11/4L, Hidayat Jat and Shahbaz of Chak 10/4L and Muhammad Sarwar and Ahmad Ali Hajjam of Chak 15/4L were arrested at a stop near Khyber (Tabrook) dairy farm.

Meanwhile, the Anjuman Mazareen Punjab (Okara Zone) members held a meeting at Chak 4/4L with acting president Liaquat Ali in the chair. The participants condemned what they called police and the Rangers’ high-handedness against the military farm tenants and their families.

They said the law-enforcers’ action against the tenants on Monday last was uncalled for, as the victims were peacefully demanding that their colleagues should be released. The tenants also criticized the Okara police for continuous arrests of the ‘innocent’ farmers.

The AMP urged the Amnesty International and Red Cross to take stock of the atrocities against the military farms’ tenants. The Anjuman gave a 48-hours deadline to the area police to release the tenants, saying they would once again stage a sit-in near the GT Road after the deadline.

The AMP leaders denied the official claims that the protesting tenants were trying to uproot a railway track. AMP acting secretary-general Shagufta Zafar claimed that the tenants were passing by track when the police and the Rangers baton-charged and opened fire on them.