LAHORE – Aman Inquilabi Ittehad, consisting of a four-party alliance, held a protest at Charing Cross on Friday, expressing concern at the registration of cases in Khanewal against hundreds of tenants under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The tenants had participated in a march to Lahore to press their demand for ownership rights of the land that they had been cultivating for decades. The protestors said that while the administration had refrained from using force to prevent the tenants’ march elsewhere in Punjab, tenants in Khanewal were baton-charged by the police and faced tear-gas shelling and detention during their efforts to march to Lahore and hundreds were booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
They said that scores of tenants, including women and children, were severely injured when the police beat the marchers with batons and used tear-gas shells to disperse them. The alliance said that violence against these unarmed tenants was uncalled for and demanded that the Punjab government give them their due rights instead of harassing them. Present at the protest were Asif S. Sheikh, convener of the alliance, Shaukhat Ali Chaudhry, Tanvir Ahmed Khan, Nisar Safdar Naqvi, and Ishtiaq Chaudhry.
