LAHORE, May 25: The People’s Rights Movement (PRM) on Sunday demanded an immediate end to ‘state repression’ on Okara military farms.

Speaking at a press conference after a visit to the area, Asha Amirali and Asim Sajjad of the PRM, flanked by Chaudhry Ashraf of the Anjuman-i-Mazareen and Khawar Mahmood of the Punjab Bar Council, claimed that their delegation had to take to dirt roads to avoid the pickets and barricades put up by the Rangers around 18 villages in the area.

The delegation made it to Chak 5-4/L but was later prevented by the Rangers from going to the Okara Press Club and warned against a visit to any of the villages without authorisation from local Rangers officials.

The Rangers have besieged over 100,000 residents of these villages and since the death of Mohammad Amir on May 11, at least five more people injured on that fateful day have died because they were not allowed to leave the villages for treatment, they said.

Schoolchildren are being harassed and relatives of tenants picked up as a pressure tactic, they claimed. Local correspondents of the national dailies were being harassed into serving the Rangers’ objectives, they said.

AMP leaders have been implicated in a multitude of false cases. They demanded that all false cases against tenants should be withdrawn and all AMP leaders set free. A hunger strike, led by PRM leaders at Islamabad, had entered its 10th day and would continue till all the barricades were removed, they said.