HYDERABAD, Feb 28: The chairman of the London-based Peace and Human Rights Trust, Mr Mukhtar Rana, has called for a consistent struggle against human rights abuses, including bonded and child labour.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, he said violation of laws dealing with child labour and private jails continued unabated. He said that he would take up the case of Manu Bheel, whose family could not be freed from an influential landlord despite a lapse of several years and directives of the Sindh government.

He said that struggle against all these evils must continue simultaneously regardless of consequences. A former PPP leader, Mukhtar Rana, said that around two million people were victims of the bonded labour whereas the civil administration failed to take punitive and effective measures because mostly officials remained hand in glove with the perpetrators of atrocities. He said the administration was afraid of these influential landlords.

He said the family of Mannu Bheel was rescued and they were kidnapped by men of an influential feudal lord and since then the police failed to recover them despite the registration of an FIR and directives of the Sindh government including the Sindh governor.

He said that landlords exploited weakness and financial problems of peasants and forced them to work as bonded labour that had been banned under a specific law which called for referring any monetary dispute between land owner to the court. He said that the trust would work for ensuring recovery of Manu Bheel's family until it was got freed.

The legal adviser pointed out that a fresh constitutional petition had been filed in the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, praying the court to ensure recovery of the Bheel's family. The organizer of the trust, Momin Khan Momin, and Aslam Rana were present on the occasion.

CASE: Mian Shadab Panhiyar, whose brother Mian Faraz was booked by the GOR police in an attempted murder case, has said that his brother was falsely implicated in order to malign his maternal uncle, Liaquat Ali Jatoi.

He was speaking at a press conference at the press club here on Monday. Referring to the incident in which one Zeeshan Pirzado had claimed that he had been fired upon by Mian Faraz Iqbal while he was on his way home on motorbike, he said in fact Faraz at that time was in the Sindh Assembly along with his uncles, Ehsan Ali Jatoi and Sadaqat Ali Jatoi.