First it was Okara, now it is Lahore. The problem is the same: army's hunger for choice lands.
The landless tenant farmers, who have been tilling the military farm near Lahore for the last one hundred years, are crying out for help. The disputed land, thirteen thousand acres, was leased by the Government of the Punjab to the British army for 99 years. The lease expired in 2005.
Nevertheless, the Pakistani army wants to keep it occupied. The army has already added hundreds of acres of this land into the cantonment. Jaindrah Pind has already been hemmed in from three sides, West, East and South, by the Defense Housing Authority. From Revenue Board to Supreme Court to the Punjab Government have accepted the farmers' tenant rights but the army is adament to get its way and evict all the tenant farmers from the land they have tilled for generations to give the choice lands to military officers to build or sell.
In a rally held on Sunday at Jaindra Pind the representatives of the Tenant Farmers Association blamed, in their speeches, the military for finding excuses to occupy their land and harassing them and their families. They, however, vowed to fight back saying that they won't let anyone occupy their lands "even if it is the army".
The tenant farmers of Okara went through a similar ordeal when they were evicted by the army from the lands they had tilled for more than a century. They started a four years long movement, in 2001, to resist army's efforts to occupy their lands. Scores of farmers were killed, wounded and tortured by Rangers, a para-military force that is under direct control of the army. Finally in 2005 army stopped atrocities after the tenant farmers refused to cave in. The Rangers were pulled out only five months ago.
Now, the army has its eyes trained on this Lahore Farm.
The president of the farmers association warned the rallying farmers that if they did not stand up for their rights and gave in to the threats or temptations then the army will kill them one by one and they will not have left with them even two yards of land to bury themselves.
One of the speaker in simple Punjabi said that "army's real duty is to defend the borders of our homeland but its eyes are on our choice lands. It was busy in planning housing schemes, building bungalows for its officers, and helping themselves with contracts for laying roads". He said in Punjabi: "jay eh saadey saamney aaey tey assaN ehnaN nooN tunn kay rakhna aey" (if they confronted us we will push them in the ground).
The Lahore Military Farm is on the Burky Road, adjacent to the army cantonment in the south, and consists of seven old villages: Jaindrah Pind, Bhagwan Pur, Chak Burj, Chak Padri, Chak Dhorewala, Chak Rackterha, and Chak Habibullah.
Do the Pakistanis have any rights anymore? Ot is it all military?
No comments:
Post a Comment