ISLAMABAD, May 17: The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) has demanded that all generals and other officers of the armed forces and Rangers involved in land grabbing be tried for tarnishing the image of the armed forces.

The demand was made by the PML-N information secretary, Siddiqul Farooq, while issuing a factsheet on military farms incidents at a press briefing here on Saturday.

Flanked by chairman Anjuman-i-Mazaraeen Punjab Chaudhry Liaquat Ali and the deputy secretary-general Basra Bibi, the PML-N leader said their crime was more serious because their activities were creating hatred between the armed forces and the people that might lead to a conflict.

The PML-N demanded that FIRs against tenants be scrapped, police pickets around villages be removed and all steps to dislodge tenants from their lands be stopped within 24 hours. He also demanded setting up of a high-level impartial inquiry committee, enjoying the confidence of the parliament and public, be formed immediately to probe into land allotment to serving and retired military officers.

The PML-N leader also distributed copies of official letters exchanged by the defence ministry and Punjab Revenue Board officials. He said previous military regimes had “authorized unbelievable perks for serving and retired military officers, including 50 acres of valuable agricultural land for every general promoted from the rank of major general.

“The Musharraf regime is not content with that. It has been trying to grab more land in the most fertile areas of Punjab, particularly in Okara, Pirowl and Khanewal”, he said. “The current campaign of dislodging tenants from military farms is totally illegal, unauthorized, tyrannical and in violation of the directives of an elected PM,” he said.

Mr Farooq said the Punjab Board of Revenue had leased out large tracts of agricultural land, tilled by tenants and their forefathers for over 80 years, to military farms and other organizations like Punjab Seed Corporation. The leases have already expired, but the military instead of vacating the land, have publicly claimed the ownership of these lands, he said.

The PML-N leader further accused the military authorities of pressing the Board of Revenue from time to time to transfer the ownership of these lands to the military.

The letter, written by the Board of Revenue to Lt-Gen Hamid Nawaz Khan (retired), the secretary ministry of defence, on April 13, 2001, stated: “In case of transfer of land from the provincial government to the federal government, it is always transferred at the market rate plus capitalized value ......Therefore, the existing policy framework, it will be appreciated, does not favour acceding to the request stated in your communication.”

He said Nawaz Sharif had granted ownership of these lands in Okara to the farmers in August 1999. Ironically, he said, Gen Musharraf himself promised at a public meeting during referendum campaign that the state lands would be distributed among sitting tenants. Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal also made the same promise during his election campaign, he added.

Siddiqul Farooq said on July 9, 2002, Rangers DG Hussain Mehdi called 105 representatives of tenants and threatened them that if they did not sign contract forms, they would be taken to the border and shot dead as RAW agents. Moreover, he said, the military authorities had set up private jails in collusion with Rangers and police. About 1,700 FIRs have been registered with “false criminal charges” against tenants and their family members. “School-going girls are picked up by military authorities forcing them to ask their parents to yield to the military demands”, he said. Electricity and water supply to many villages had already been cut off to add to the misery of the poor people.

He said all these measures were part of “grand design of land grabbing and aligning the military with feudal elite of the country”. The total area under lease to military farms in various districts of Punjab is 166,204 acres. The argument that military control over this area is necessary due to proximity with the border does not hold good except for 1,450 acres lying in the district of Kasur, he said. These military farms have no relations with the defence of the country.