Mehr Abdul Sattar: Okara’s peasant movement leader joins PTI

The Okara heavyweight and the Secretary General of Anjuman Mazareen Punjab [peasant movement] Mehr Abdul Sattar has joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Anjuman Mazareen Punjab (AMP) leader Mehr Abdul Sattar is popular for leading a mass campaign for the ownership rights of farmers and peasants, whereas, he had also spent years in jail for raising voice for the peasants’ rights.

PTI leader Hammad Azhar said in a tweet, “The head of Mazareen movement Mehr Abdul Sattar has joined PTI today. He faced fake cases and prison for four years and fight for the rights of thousands of farmers.”

اوکاڑہ سے مزارا تحریک کے سربراہ مہر عبدالستار آج تحریک انصاف میں شامل ہو گئے۔ آپ نے 4 سال جعلی مقدمات اور جیل کا سامنا کیا اور ہزاروں کسانوں کو کاشت کے حقوق دلوائے۔ pic.twitter.com/AbeP7H4oZJ

— Hammad Azhar (@Hammad_Azhar) October 13, 2022

In September 2020, Mehr Abdul Sattar, the general secretary of Anjuman Mazareen Punjab, was accorded a warm welcome when he reached the Okara Military Farms after serving four and a half years in jail.

Sattar had been arrested on April 16, 2016 during a raid on his house at the military farms after he announced holding a big rally at his village, Chak 4/4-L, on the eve of International Farmers’ Day.

A Sahiwal anti-terrorism court had sentenced him to 10 years in jail in 2018.

He was leading a military farms’ peasants movement to win ownership rights since 2001. This was probably the first major mass movement against retired Gen Musharraf as their villages, 19 in all, were besieged by the military farms administration. The women peasants were at the forefront of the movement.

It had erupted when the administration proposed to bring in a contracting system with the peasants and the farmers refused to share their harvest with the administration. The peasants’ leaders, including Mehr Sattar, were booked in dozens of cases that included extortion, treason, terrorism, possessing illegal arms and attacking police.

Senior lawyers like Asma Jahangir, Zahid Bukhari, Azam Nazir Tarar, Abid Saqi, Farooq Ahmad Bajwa and Azar Latif Khan represented Sattar at various stages in cases of murder, attempted murder, extortion, illegal gatherings and others.

His release was strongly demanded by national as well as international human rights organisations. A team of the National Commission for Human Rights, Pakistan’s apex body, had visited Okara after his arrest and in a subsequent report explicitly denied the allegations against him and suggested that all farmer leaders should be released and the dispute between them and the farm administration resolved through dialogue.

In one of the 36 cases registered against Sattar between 2001 and 2016, he was accused of firing at a police constable during a road blockade. The constable had been slightly injured in some encounter. His medical certificate had been found to be presented in several other cases too.

The prosecutor could not satisfy the Lahore High Court when the judge hearing the case remarked that if Sattar fired from a distance of seven feet, the bullet should have pierced through the constable instead of causing a minor injury. The judge then accepted Sattar’s appeal against the sentence, Dawn News reported.