HYDERABAD, Jan 19: A large number of liberated peasants, including women and children, staged a sit-in on the Press Club Road here on Monday in support of Mannu Bheel who has been on hunger strike for the last one year.

The sit-in was staged under the banner of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Azad Hari Union and the All Sindh Bheel Huqooq Commission. Speaking on the occasion, HRCP officials Nasreen Shakeel and Chaudhry Aftab Ahmad, People's Party Parliamentarians leader Jam Saqi, Azad Hari Union leaders Master Lal Jee and Ahmad Khan Dars, Bheel Huqooq Commission president Bhaqat Kachro and others criticized the government and the police for their failure to recover nine family members of Mannu Bheel, being held hostages by a landlord of Sanghar.

The family members of Mannu Bheel, including his parents, wife and children, were kidnapped by a landlord of Jhol, Sanghar district, on May 2, 1998, in Digri taluka, Mirpurkhas district. An FIR was registered at the Jhuddo police station on May 4, 1998.