Farmers, residents hold rally against Lahore’s Ravi project

LAHORE: A large number of farmers, residents and industrialists affected by Ravi Riverfront Project staged a protest at Shahdara Chowk here on Monday.

The protesters blocked the main interchange causing a traffic jam for hours on various city roads. Following the traffic jam, CTO visited the Ravi Bridge and passed directions to his team to divert the traffic.

The protesters called the Ravi Riverfront project a robbery of public rights and termed it the death of farmers and area residents. They also chanted slogans against the Punjab government and the Rive Urban Development Authority (RUDA). They were also displaying banners and placards against the project. Addressing the gathering, Mian Mustafa Rashid, convener of Farmers and Victims Committee, alleged that the government had made people fool regarding this project and showed them false dreams at an inauguration ceremony of the project.

"RUDA officials verbally told the industrialists that they have removed industries from the project but no notification has been issued yet, which is a clear proof of malice of the rulers,” said Mustafa Rasheed.

"We are ready to give our lands for lake and barrage but we will never let anybody occupy our lands in the name of lake and so-called public interest", he added.

He said bureaucrats assured public of fulfilling their legal demands, but they violated right to information act by refusing to provide them attested copies of Section 4 and Section 5 of the Land Acquisition Act. He warned the government to refrain from such a ‘cruel’ act otherwise people will fight for their rights against the government and make it difficult for the rulers to stay in the government.

He told the protesters that on Wednesday, RUDA Chairman Rashid Aziz had invited farmers’ delegation to meet him at the DC Lahore office.

Speaking on the occasion, Malik Amir, a representative of the farmers, said, “We can block roads if we want, but we are peaceful, we do not want to take law into our hands.” Ch Rafiq, another speaker, said earlier, “We had presented our demands to the bureaucracy of Sheikhupura and Lahore but none of them listened but now they were contacting us for talks.”

Pakistan is an agricultural country and 70pc of people are associated with agriculture, their rights can’t be denied in any way, he said. Bao Qasim, Nazir Awan, Khawaja Anwar, Ch Muhammad Ali, Malik Murtaza, Chaudhry Sajjad Warraich and Ch Asif Lambardar also addressed the protesters.