Ch Pervaiz Elahi condemns police torture on the protesting farmers in Lahore

Lahore: Pakistan Muslim League (PML) senior central leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Ch Parvez Elahi has in very strong words condemned unjustified baton-charge on unarmed farmers, torture and arrest in different cases and said that farmers enemy rulers were not allowing them to raise voice for their genuine rights by resorting to crackdown on them.

Former Punjab Chief Minister in a statement issued here today strongly supported all demands of Pakistan Kissan Ittehad and demanded that the present govt should restore all facilities and incentives for farmers including cheap electricity, fertilizers, seed, credit as well as sufficient availability of water and tax exemption which were given to them during our tenure.

He said only crime of the farmers including elders and young boys subjected to worst police torture was that they wanted to raise voice against heavy taxes and for fair price for their crops but they were not even allowed to address the press conference. He said further that it was the responsibility of the govt to procure crops from the cultivators on the govt fixed procurement prices; present rulers on one hand were importing Indian vegetables etc and on the other hand were committing economic murder of their farmers through unjustified taxes on fertilizers, agriculture insecticides and other articles.

Ch Parvez Elahi said that in other countries farmers were given special incentives but here rulers hostility and enmity against farmers was increasing every day whereas in other provinces more facilities in agriculture sector including cheap electricity were available to farmers as compared to Punjab and this was the reason that ratio of agriculture growth here was going backward.