LAHORE: Police barred tenants and their supporters from holding a demonstration for the release of their imprisoned leaders here on Wednesday.

Dozens of policemen from Qilla Gujar Singh led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Ghulam Dastagir encircled the Lahore Press Club to bar the Pakistan Kisan Rabta Committee (PKRC) from demanding release of arrested leaders of the Okara-based Anjuman-i-Mazareen Punjab (AMP).

Reports from Okara district said that AMP members from Chak 4/4L, 12/4L, 15/4L and 10/4L found their villages barricaded on Wednesday morning as law enforcers prevented them from leaving their villages to join the demonstration organised in front of the Lahore Press Club.

As members of the PKRC and their sup-portersarrivedinfront ofthe pressclub to demand release of Mehr Abdus Sattar, the AMP leader imprisoned for over a year, and Ghulam Noor Nabi, AMP general secretary arrested last month, they found a heavy police contingent deployed there.

Police claimed they had received special instructions to clamp down on the peasants` protest without specifying who issued the directions and why.

As members of the PKRC, the Communist Party of Pakistan, the AllPakistan Trade Union Federation, the Progressive Labour Federation, the Joint Action Committee for People`s Rights and the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign began shouting slogans against tactics to silence protesters, and demanded the release of AMP leaders, police threatened to arrest everyone present at the demonstration citing imposition of Section 144.

Police told the protesters to disperse or face mass arrests, PKRC leaders alleged. They criticised the government for what they called using antiterrorism laws and Section 144 to silence activists, peasants, workers and students, and to criminalise dissent.

Farooq Tariq, general secretary of the PKRC, condemned the police attempt to silence the peasants and their supporters. `We will continue to support the right of landownership of all tenants of Okara. The government`s attempt to silence the weak and the oppressed must be condemned by all conscious individuals.

He urged all progressive groups to raise their voices against the `draconian` laws and policies used to `unjustly` imprison activists for `demanding their rights`