LAHORE, Aug 21: Claims, counter-claims and a complete confusion rules the area forming military farms in and around the Okara city, making it next to impossible to ascertain the veracity of assertions made by the army and farmers.

For example, the Rangers authorities on Wednesday claimed that an agreement had reached with farmers’ representatives and most of them were ready to sign the same. They also produced a signed copy of the same.

But the farmers leaders, on the other hand, denied signing any agreement. “What the authorities have been producing are the minutes of the meeting that we were made to sign,” said the Anjuman-i-Muzareen chief. This is a deceit of the first order.

Chief representative Chaudhry Abdul Jabbar also denied signing any agreement and instead raised slogans against the so-called agreement in the public meetings on Tuesday.

Most of the farmers in the area also expressed ignorance about any agreement and questioned their leaders’ competence to sign the same.

Police pickets established around the villages, according to the villagers, were there to harass them and restrict their mobility. They also narrated stories of atrocities perpetrated on them.

On the other hand, police claimed that these pickets were there to check miscreants coming to villages and inciting people against the state.

They were not meant to harass people nor disrupt their normal life. They claimed that not a single formal complaint had been lodged with them against any specific person manning these pickets.

The police claimed that it maintained some checkpoints on the main roads, but the villagers had established such checkpoints on all the entry roads and they were blocking law enforcing agencies’ enter to any village. The visiting journalists also came across many armed men roaming in and around the villages.

The villagers also narrated woeful tales of law-enforcing agencies picking up people without charges and keeping them in custody for weeks. The agencies, on the other hand, denied the charge and asked the journalists to produce even a single formal complaint in this regard. Conversely, they claimed on the 16th of this month, a police party was invited to a village to help arrest a proclaimed offender —- Muhammad Siqqiue —- and the whole party was detained by the villagers which was later handed over to the SSP concerned. They also claimed that it was these villagers who had been harassing those who had signed the agreement with the Rangers. The head of Muhammad Hanif was shaved off and he was made to sit on a donkey and tour the village. One arm of the 22-year old son of Abdul Ghafoor was broken by some villagers to punish him for siding with the agencies and signing the proposed agreement.

In reply to telephone disconnections, they claimed that two lines of an army farm house had been cut by the villagers and they were not allowing to reconnect them.

The DG Rangers on Wednesday claimed that over 90 per cent farmers from Boyal Gunj and Probanabad villages had signed the agreement and got lands.

But the farmers and their representatives contradicted the claim that it was a voluntary signing, and said: “They were made to sit at the Rangers office from 9am to 4am without any meal or water and were forced into signing the agreement that we do not recognize.”

The local Rangers authorities, on the other hand, were open to new suggestions. Brig Ahsan Tiwana claimed that everything short of ownership (because only government of Pakistan can decide) was negotiable. The Rangers were open to every suggestion and people were welcome to the office. He also offered the visiting journalists to attend the meeting as independent observers.

Whereas, the farmers claimed that the Rangers had invited us for talks and arrested them in the past. This might happen again. They argued in response to the invitation that they could not hold talks with the army as they were not the owner of the land.

The only recorded lease of the land had expired way back in 1933. It had not been renewed in favour of anyone since then and there was no record as such.

“The farmers have lost a case in the Lahore High Court and the army are a legal lessee of the land so they have to come to terms with it,” the Rangers said.