MULTAN, April 24: The physical remand of the arrested Anjuman Mazareen leaders ran into 21 days in police custody on Thursday as a local court of Okara extended the remand for three more days.
AMP chairman Younas Iqbal, secretary-general Dr Christopher John and two activists, Faheem and Sajid, were whisked away allegedly by personnel of the para-military force from Lahore on April 3 last.
Initially, none of the law enforcement agencies in the province announced custody of the ‘missing’ AMP leaders with it. But, when a habeas corpus petition was filed with the Lahore High Court the Okara police accepted that the ‘missing’ leaders were with them for being wanted in a number of cases.
When the maximum limit of 14-day remand in police custody elapsed the area police sought further remand of AMP leaders in some other cases, including those registered on Aug 24 last year, when police and rangers had raided Okara military farm villages and claimed clashes with tenants which took the life of young Suleman Masih, the son of tenant Pitras Masih.
The cases were registered under various sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and PPC with Okara Cantonment and Saddar police stations.
Another case under which the AMP leaders are said to be on remand was registered (492/2002) by the Saddar police against the Anjuman people for organizing a public meeting also addressed by, among others, noted right activists Ms Asma Jehangir. The FIR claimed that speakers used abusive language against the military leadership and tired to undermine the achievements of armed forces in the wars fought since independence.
The detained AMP leaders will now be presented before court on April 26 for further remand. An official source in Okara claimed that AMP leaders themselves pleaded before court on their last hearing for extension in remand claiming that an agreement was to be reached between them and the ‘authorities’ who had ordered their detention.
A number of Okara AMP leaders confirmed that the pressure tactics had defeated the endurance of their detained comrades for they had started speaking the ‘official language’ to motivate tenants to accept the package of the military farm management which meant that the ‘ownership or death’ slogan be sacrificed to become lessees of lands they had been cultivating for nearly a century.
They said the irony was that a federal minister who returned to parliament with an active support of Okara tenants was pulling strings of the detained AMP leaders to appease his ‘masters’.
They said, however, the tenants had nominated interim replacement of the detained leaders while a new leadership would soon be elected through a convention. “Our’s is a goal-oriented movement which can not be detracted by changing leaders’ mind under coercion,” added Abdul Sattar, a tenants’ leader in Okara.