BAHAWALNAGAR: Residents of village Dhab Dhonkal Singh continued their protest on the second day on Tuesday against the police and revenue officials for booking eight men of the village, including a mentally challenged person, in fake cases.

The protestors alleged that influential landlords were pressurising them to withdraw the court cases they had filed against them. They claimed the Minchinabad assistant commissioner on July 26 held Muhammad Arshad, Shaddi, Muhammad Akram, Ghaffar, Muhammad Aslam, Muhammad Ismail, Adli and Rajju responsible for damaging the crop of one Khalid Farooq of Mauza Kahn Singh and ordered police to take action. They said the AC had quoted the reports of a tehsildar.

The protesters said the Mandi Sadiq Ganj police lodged two cases against the men on Aug 1 on complainant of Khalid, a proclaimed offender of from Arifwala City Police for the past four years. They said Shaddi, a mentally challenged man, had been accused of holding arms when he could not even eat on his own while another man, Adli, was in Lahore.

The protesters alleged the SHO had been pressurising them to withdraw the land dispute cases in the courts.

Mandi Sadiq Ganj SHO Amir Abbas said the complainant was on pre-arrest bail. He said the cases were lodged on report of the revenue department.

Minchinabad Tehsildar Abdul Rasheed denied visiting any site or preparing any report on the complaint by Khalid. He said he did not know why he was mentioned in the report.

Minchinabad AC Ahmed Saleem Chishti said Naib Tehsildar Syed Shah Nawaz had issued the report. However, Shah Nawaz said that he was aware of the matter but had neither gone to the site nor had he sent any report to the AC.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2021