LAHORE, June 19: The Anjuman Mazareen Punjab has reiterated its demand for ownership rights for farmers cultivating state land for the last 100 years.
The governor’s secretariat, meanwhile, expressed serious concern over “inept handling of the situation by the Agriculture and Police Departments and the district governments concerned.”
Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, AMP chairman Sardar Javed Iqbal Dogar, Khanewal chapter’s women wing president Faizan and general secretary Aqeela also demanded an end to the continuing harassment of tenants across the province.
Tenants’ children, they said, would hold rallies on Thursday in nine districts — Khanewal, Sahiwal, Okara, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Multan, Pakpattan, Muzaffargarh and Vehari — and women wing members will set up a protest camp outside the United Nations office in Islamabad.
The AMP leaders also produced a copy of a June 15 letter addressed to the Agriculture Department secretary, the IGP and the Khanewal district Nazim, directing them on the governor’s behalf to settle the issue within 15 days, taking all steps to ensure that the writ of the government prevailed. The letter proposes that “the people cultivating land at state farms should accept their status as lessees, sign a contract in this regard and abide by it.
“The Punjab government shall guarantee their rights as lessees and peaceful co-existence.
“The cotton sown by the lessees at Punjab Seed Corporation farms should be uprooted to ensure purity of the seed developed by the corporation.”
The Anjuman claims that the governor’s orders were aimed at crushing the movement for ownership rights. They said forcing them to accept the status of a lessee was meant to deprive them of their rights as tenants. They claimed that they were being forced to sign one-year contracts.
They said a 5,000-strong police force had laid a siege to five villages of Peerowal, Khanewal, on Wednesday to stop the 500 people from appearing before the sessions court for confirmation of their interim bails on Thursday. The police have registered cases against the people under Section 324 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The Anjuman leaders stated that a man and a woman had died of fear caused by the Jun9 police action.
Labour Party Pakistan secretary general Farooq Tariq said the peasants’ movement could not be crushed since they were ready to offer sacrifices for their rights. He alleged that a death squad had been sent Lahore to kill Mr Dogar. He said the potential assailants were disguised as peasants from Peerowal. An inquiry, however, had revealed that they did not work there.
He said the Irrigation and Power Department had also stopped irrigation supplies to Peerowal villages to destroy the cotton crop.
Mr Dogar said the government was not ready to allot the land to the tenants cultivating it for 100 years but it was allotting it to army officers. He claimed that four square of land had recently been allotted to a major-general and two squares to a colonel in Khanewal area.
South Asia Partnership representative Ghulam Muhammad Gunjeera regretted that state terrorism had been let loose on one million tenants to force them accept the status of lessees.
Earlier, tenants had launched an abortive movement for ownership before partition in Julluder division (East Punjab), Ferozpur, Lahore, Okara and Faisalabad (then Lyallpur).