February 27, 2008	Wednesday	Safar 19, 1429

HYDERABAD, Feb 26: Two peasants who were smuggled to Iran several months back and managed to reach Pakistan after slipping away from there, have demanded recovery of 36 more persons from Sindh who were being held hostages in Iran at an agricultural land.

They held a protest demonstration outside the press club here on Tuesday and demanded recovery of 36 persons who were smuggled to Iran by a group of people. The labourers who included Pir Bux and Mohammad Saleh, residents of Matli, arrived at the press club and told journalists that they had escaped from Iran two months ago from Iran’s Zarabad area around 200 kilometres off Iranian city of Chahbahar.

Narrating their ordeal, they said that one Saeed Khan Makrani, Gul Mohammad Makrani and Ameer Bux, had approached them with an offer that they would be taken to Iran as agriculture labour and a lucrative package.

“We worked really hard to cultivate the land which were destroyed due to torrential rains and owners of land now claimed an outstanding due of Rs1.2 million while he didn’t pay us our labour for around nine months”, said Pir Bux.

He said that around 36 persons were still there while he and Mohammad Saleh somehow managed to slip away separately from that area. He said that family members who were being held there included women, girls and minor children.

Mohammad Saleh said that all these 36 people were taken to Iran in two separate groups illegally and they didn’t possess any kind of documents when they were smuggled by road. He said that Saeed Makrani, who lives in Tando Adam, had guaranteed our safety during our stay in Iran.

He maintained that nothing emerged out of their correspondence with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

He said that Saeed was untraceable and maintained that a landlord of the area had helped them escape from Iran.