MULTAN The City

Non-acceptance of demands
Farmers warn of countrywide protest
From Our Correspondent
MULTAN: Farmers are devising a protest strategy against the government for its alleged non-seriousness in resolving their problems and not fulfilling commitments made with them, said Pakistan Kisan Ittehad president Khalid Khokhar.
Talking to newsmen here on Tuesday, he said that the government had stopped the PKI’s long march on March 8 and constituted a high-level committee for resolution of the farmers’ problems but the committee had so far not held any meeting. He said that the committee comprised the Punjab Chief minister, the Federal Finance minister, the Federal Defence minister and others. He said that the agriculture was the country’s backbone and the government should take the farmers’ issues and demands seriously. He said that if the demands of the farmers were not, they would launch a countrywide protest. He said that the farmers belonging to Sindh were being taken into confidence to adopt a joint protest strategy. He said that the government had promised suspending the Pak-India trade and imposing duty on the import of agri products, especially vegetables from India. The government had also promised removing 17pc GST on agriculture inputs, machinery and fertilizer, but not a single commitment had so far been fulfilled. He said that Pakistan had been importing duty free vegetables from India, which had lowered the prices of domestic agri produces in the market. The farmers were forced to sell potato at Rs 3 per kilogram against the promised price of Rs 23 per kilogram, he added. He said that the duty free import from India had destroyed over 70pc tunnel farming in Punjab and the virus infected Indian vegetables were being imported without any laboratory test.

Murder convict hanged in Multan jail
From Our Correspondent
MULTAN: A murder convict was hanged in the New Central Jail on Tuesday.
The convict, Nasrullah (37), of Jatoi was hanged in the presence of a magistrate, a doctor and the jail officials.
Nasrullah had killed one of the killers of his elder brother in 1994. He was underage at the time of committing the crime. The Dera Ghazi Khan Anti-Terrorism Court had awarded him death sentence. Later, his appeals were rejected by the superior courts and the president.