Farmers of Okara, embroiled in a bitter row with the army over agricultural land ownership, said yesterday that soldiers were not allowing them to harvest the wheat crop in an attempt to force them to sign "an unjust" contract deal.
"Police, paramilitary rangers and even the army have been deployed to prevent us from reaping the wheat crop," said Liaquat Ali, chairman of the Organisation of Farmers of Punjab.
"We have come all the way to Islamabad to tell the world about our woes and a brutal operation conducted against us on April 21 in which dozens of people, including women, were injured."
More than 12,000 acres of prime agriculture land in Okara has become a bone of contention between the farmers and the army, which wants them either to vacate it or get it for farming under the contract system.
But farmers, who work there as tenants since 1906, say that the land belongs to the Punjab provincial government and the army had no right to it.
"We pay 75 per cent of our yield to the authorities and are willing to work under this arrangement," Ali said. "We have been working under this system for the last three generations and wonder why the army is claiming this land as its own."
Ten farmers have been killed in clashes with the security forces since 2000.
"The army has no business to run farms, and cultivate the land. They should only protect our borders," he said adding that police have registered cases against hundreds of farmers on charges of terrorism and anti-state activities.
"I myself have been facing 29 such cases," he said.
In recent years, there has been an increasing criticism by the civil society over the armed forces growing business and agriculture stakes in the country.
The army gets prime residential, agriculture and commercial plots all over the country, which the government says is to reward the services of its personnel.
But Pakistan, which is the world's sixth most populous country, is now beginning to feel the crunch as land is getting scarce not just in cities, but also in the rural areas.
The dispute over Okara lands in Punjab province has been lingering on for the last five years, but a solution acceptable to both sides remains remote.
