Lahore Police baton-charge, arrest protesting farmers

LAHORE: Police broke up a Pakistan Kissan Ittehad Council rally held outside Lahore Press Club on Wednesday to press for fair prices for farm commodities and against government policies.
The police baton-charged and arrested protest around 500 farmers as soon as they gathered to voice their reservations about the policies of the government which they believe benefit mill owners and industrialists a lot more than them
Council president Chaudhry Anwar said the government had declined permission to farmers to hold a protest at the suggested venue Nasser Bagh following which they decided to head to Lahore Press Club.
They had just reached outside the club when the police pounced on them baton-charging and arresting more than 500 farmers associated with the Pakistan Kissan Ittehad.He said the police had assaulted and arrested the farmers without giving any due cause. The arrested farmers were bundled into vans and taken to Racecourse and Old Anarkali police stations. Ch Anwar and Rao Tariq were arrested and shifted them to Racecourse police station.
Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif ordered immediate release of farmers taken into protective custody due to creating hurdles to flow of traffic in front of Lahore Press Club. Following the release, the activists of Kissan Ittehad staged a sit-in outside Racecourse police station.
Meanwhile, religious leaders condemned Punjab government for unleashing police crackdown on peaceful peasants demanding fixing paddy support price and termed it enmity by the rulers.
Jamaat-i-Islami ameer Sirajul Haq and Secretary General Liaquat Baloch in their statements condemned the police baton-charge and arrest of workers in Kissan Ittehad and urged the government to accept their just demands.
The JI leaders expressed sorrow over the incident and said the government should have listened to peasants and tried to provide relief to them instead of using police force against them. They termed the police action on peasants a suicide attempt by the rulers. They said people had nothing else but the government to make their demands to, but rulers were unscrupulously using force against them instead of giving them patient ears.
Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri also condemned the police torture of peasants and said Punjab rulers must learn to respect those who produce and provide wheat for the whole country.
Addressing party leaders on phone from Canada, he said if farmers stopped producing food and workers stopped working in factories only then rulers would know their real worth. He said the farmers and the common man were suffering while the middleman was busy in wrongdoings. He said the day these business-minded rulers had come to power every Pakistani was suffering.