Reuters Posted online: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 1043 hours IST Updated: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 1106 hours IST
Islamabad, July 21: An international rights group accused the Pakistani army on Wednesday of using torture and coercion to force farmers to surrender their rights to land they have tilled for generations.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch, in a 54-page report, said the army and paramilitary troops working with them had killed and tortured farmers in the Okara district of the central province of Punjab, a charge the army strongly denied.
"Pakistan's military and paramilitary forces are brutalising their own people in the Punjab instead of protecting them," said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division.
The Pakistani government has denied similar accusations against army excesses in Okara farms in the past. The issue came to the fore in 2002 when a farmers' group accused the army of forcing farmers to sign new tenancy contracts.
"There is no truth in it," top army spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan told Reuters. "I totally reject all such things. People can go and visit and see for themselves what's happening there."
Human Right Watch said that, although the army claims to own the land in Okara, the claim is disputed by tenant farmers, some legal experts and the provincial government of Punjab.
The rights group said it had based its report on 100 interviews with tenant farmers, their children, and some alleged perpetrators of abuses.
"The (paramilitary) Rangers have tortured the children of farmers to coerce them into signing tenancy agreements, according to testimony by 30 children interviewed by Human Rights Watch," the group said in a statement.
Pakistani media have reported in the past that some farmers were shot dead while protesting against the military, but the deaths have never been officially confirmed.
