- Pakistan Kisaan Ittehad says would negotiate demands with CM or PM only
The commuters were in trouble for the second consecutive day as the traffic remained suspended due to the ongoing protest by farmers from all over the province under the banner of Pakistan Kisaan Ittehad (PKI), at Mall Road’s Faisal Chowk and surrounding areas.
The protesting farmers offered symbolic funeral of what they claim to be already ‘dead’ agriculture sector of the country on Friday and raised anti-government slogans.
The farmers took to the Mall Road on Thursday noon and blocked it and had not vacated the area till the filing of this report on Friday night.
Worse traffic jam was witnessed on the adjacent roads and commuters decried the blockade of traffic on the Mall.
Rauf Ali, who was stopped by the protestors from passing through chairing cross with his family, said that the blockade of traffic on the Mall is a matter of routine and the government should rename this chowk as “protest chowk” or allocate some other place for the protests.
Nauman Malik, a student who wanted to go to the Jinnah Library had a scuffle with the protesters for not letting pass through the chowk said that the sit-in culture in Pakistan is harming the country economically and socially.
In the meanwhile, the leadership of the PKI held a meeting with the Punjab chief secretary which ended in a deadlock.
Khalid Mehmood Khokhar, Central President of the PKI, told Pakistan Today that the farmers are not going to end their sit-in until their demands are met.
Khokhar was of the view that the PKI will only negotiate their demands the chief minister or prime minister.
He claimed that in the past, government ministers had given them false assurances that their grievances would be redressed but later, didn’t walk their talk compelling the farmers to take to roads to press for their demands.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Ayub Ahmad, a farmer from District Qasur, said that he has willfully joined the protest to fight for his due rights.
Sharing his grievances, he said the Sugar mills owners owed cultivators a huge amount of Rs 2.5 billion.
He urged the government to stop importing vegetables and fruits from India as Pakistan produces these items in surplus, adding that the trade with India is a murder of local farmers.
He further said that the farmers community demands of the government to grant subsidy of Rs 100 billion on agriculture products, fix the rate of cotton at 4,000 per maund and also grant subsidy on agriculture tube-wells.
Punjab Agriculture Minister Dr Farukkh Javaid was not available for comments and his personal assistant said that the minister was in a meeting.
It is pertinent to mention here that the minister himself is a resident of Pakpattan and a number of protesters are also from his district.
Punjab former governor and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Punjab Organiser Chaudhry Sarwar, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Liaquat Baloch and Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Mian Mehmmodur Rasheed also addressed the participants.
