LAHORE: The standoff between ETPB and the occupants of land in Kot Santram village has thrown up many ugly scenes. Al(bar Ali adds a sinister element to it all by claiming that he was hit by a bullet during the operation there on May 14. He alleges he was fired upon by none other than the ETPB chairman and well-known PML-N politician Siddiqu1 Farooq -who denies the charge.

There was a scuffle when the ETPB officials led by Farooq arrived at Karmanwala Chowk, Kot Santram, to carry out a cleanup operation that day. A violent protest in the Nankana city followed. The protesters set the local ETPB office, precious land record and other valuables on fire, forcing the ETPB team to halt action.

`The ETPB men and the police entered our house forcibly,` Akbar, who introduces himself as a legal tenant, said talking to Dawn in his village on Wednesday. `They thrashedusandoursonsanddaughters. They asked us to leave or face the state`s wrath.

`As they unleashed the blows onus, I rushed outside to plead with Siddiqul Farooq to stop it,` he said.

`Just as I was approaching him with my request, he shot at me. Luckily the bullet grazed my head.

He says he has cell-phone footage and eyewitnesses to prove his allegation.

A police official quotes a Special Branchreport thatsays Farooq had pointed a pistol at Akbar. `The report didn`t confirm Farooq had fired on Akbar,` the official told Dawn while requesting anonymity.

The ETPB chairman rejects Akbar`s allegations. `I was there, but I didn`t fire at him,` Siddiqul Farooq said. `Akbar and his family members put up resistance aftertwo lady police constables entered their house, at which the police baton charged them.

`I did not point a pistol at Akbar nor did I shoot at him,` Farooq told Dawn.

`When the officials entered our home about 8am (on May 14), I was really frightened,` says Akbar`s niece, Rubina Kausar. `They started beating me, ordering me to take the cattle and other valuables out of the building. Later they took all of us to the police station.

The dispute is decades deep.

ETPB owns as many as 19,000 acres of agriculture and commercial land in Nankana Sahib district. Officials in the department say there are issues related to some 16,391 of these total 19,000 acres: Tenants are not ready to pay annual lease (up to over Rs6,700 per acre) fixed according to the status or the quality of land.

`There are 3,350 illegal occupants or so-called khatadaran (title-holders).

These titles include 1,005 cases of extension of lease and another 2,345 concerning annual auctions since 1974,` said Muhammad Ishaq, ETPB`s deputy administrator in Nankana.

`Whosoever gets trust land on lease etc starts considering him to be the owner of the property and not a tenant.

Ishaq says for many years, the tenants used to give rent money to ETPB equalling the value of 40kgs of wheat. Also, before 1989, the tenants would pay Rs50 or100annuairentforeachacretoETPB.

`In 2005, the court announced a decision in our favour, empowering ETPB to charge the tenants as per the status (or value) of the land. We devised a new policy under which the maximum annual rent was fixed at Rs6,700. Though we implemented it for some years, in 2009, the then ETPB chairman announced the return of the previous policy where an amount equalling 40kgs of wheat per acre was received from the tenants. This was a surprise and caused a huge loss to the department,` Ishaq explained.

The department may be the legalowner of vast acreage of land in various villages of Nankana and called as Janamasthan Patti (the land of Baba Guru Nanak`s birth).

On the other hand, the tenants, a majority of whom got the land in Nankana after migrating here at the time of the Partition in 1947, feel they have been cheated on the issue of ownership.

Rana Muhammad Sharif says his family got 26 acre in Nankana against the 100 acre they had left behind in Jalandhar in 1947. `Our grandfather told us that the government officials at that time had transferred the land in his name in lieu of the land he had held in India. But the grandfather died worrying about this issue of ownership.

All these decades later, Sharif says, `the government must allot us a piece of land equal to what we had left behind or let us occupy the land we have been cultivating since 1947.` Or else,` he continues angrily, `send us back to India.

`The government must consider our sacriñces and charge us annual rent (per acre) equal to the amount of 40kgs of wheat. And the government should also know that the land it had given us in 1947 is now divided into many heirs.

Each family head now holds no more than two to three acre,` he added.

Akbar has a similar story to tell and he says he plans to file a civil suit.

Syed Intezar Mehdi, a lawyer familiar with the ETPB cases, says the trust land cannot be transferred or sold to anyoneunder the law. `The tenants occupying the trust land under auction or lease policy will remain tenants, as there is no legal way to give them ownership rights.

However, the federal government is empowered to give tenancy/lease rights to all of legally admitted tenants for a period of 99 years,` he said.

As the standoff following the May 14 operation raised questions about the conduct of ETPB, it also strained Siddiqul Faroog`s relations with hisparty colleagues, especially MPA Malik Zulgernain Dogar.

The ETPB chairman holds Dogar responsible for triggering violent protests. Dogar, under various names, holds possession of the trust`s land worth over Rs3 billion. One of his companions occupies E TPB land worth over Rs1 billion,` Farooq had said at a recent press conference.

Dogar rejects these allegations, but says he wouldn`t speal(`against` Farooqtill completion of the inquiry report as ordered by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. `Since the inquiry is under progress, we should wait for its report.

However, I reject all the allegations Mr Farooq has levelled against me,` Dogar told Dawn earlier this week.

The Nankana DCO implies rashness on the part of ETPB when he says he was not taken on board before the operation against occupants.

`No one had discussed it with me in writing or orally. We came to know about it when the situation went out of control, leading to a charged mob burning down the ETPB office, record and other valuables,` DCO Dr Muhammad Usman said. According to him the violence could have been avoided had ETPB taken the district administration into confidence before the action.

An ETPB official in Nankana adds another twist to the saga by inserting his own details in the story here. `He (the DCO) had been informed by our head office. If he had not been taken on board as he says was the case, why and how did the police end up sending such a large contingent to accompany us as we set off to evict those who had been issued notices,` ETPB zonal administrator (Nankana) Wahab Gul said.

On his turn, Nankana DPO Rana Ayaz Saleem questions the ETPB officials` claim of taking police or the district administration prior to the forceful action on board. `On May 5, we received a routine letter from the localETPB office about launching of the anti-encroachment operation on May 14. As they requested provision of a couple of police reserves with lady constables, we arranged this. But it was so surprising for me when Mr Farooq called me directly (a few days later), stating that he would lead the operation,` Saleem explained.

He says he requested Mr Farooq to not lead an activity which is usually assigned to junior officers normally.

`On May 14, I was already on leave. But I immediately rushed to Nankana as soon as I learnt the situation had gone out of control. As I arrived on the spot, I was told that the ETPB guards had thrashed women at Karmanwala Chowk when they offered resistance,` he said.

The DPO says a rumour fast spread in the village that some people had died during the operation. `Consequently, thousands of people came out on the streets making up four mobs at four different places,` he said. `These mobs ransacked ETPB offices, blocl(ed main roads. Had ETPB taken senior administrative officials on board, the incident could have been averted.

DCO Dr Muhammad Usman is of the opinion that ETPB must stop this operation for a couple of weeks. `The villagers are too annoyed.

Siddiqul Farooq is firm in his position. He tells the occupants to either become legal tenants after paying rent to ETPB as per market rate or hand back the land to the state.