NAWABSHAH, Nov 4: District Nazim Faryal Talpur has criticized the forest department for conducting an operation with the help of Rangers and police to reclaim occupied land in Sukhpur.

She was talking to this correspondent after visiting affected areas in Sukhpur Deh, Daulatpur taluka, on Wednesday.

She said a one-sided operation had been carried out in Sukhpur which had rendered hundreds of women and children homeless. She alleged that police had burnt a large number of huts and wheat bags and also looted local people. She said the affected people had no clothing and they were in miserable condition.

Ms Talpur further said the procedure was wrong as the land occupiers must have been issued notices first.

She said she had asked the DCO and Rangers not to carry out such an operation but even then the operation was undertaken.

She said if the issue was of reclaiming the forest land then why the operation was carried out in Sukhpur only whereas thousands of acres of land, including that in Kundah, were encroached upon by influential people.

She criticized the decision of the Sindh government and demanded early rehabilitation of affected people.

LAND RECLAIMED: An operation to reclaim 1,500 acres of government land continued in the Sukhpur forest, Daulatpur taluka, on Wednesday.

The divisional forest officer, Mr Anwar Baloch, said that the staff of the forest department with the help of police vacated several houses and made 20 tube-wells inoperative.

He said that several places which were being used by criminals as their hideouts were demolished and police pickets were set up in the area. He said that 1,500 acres of forest land was reclaimed in two days.

Meanwhile, displaced people were lodging in the open and some of them have moved to nearby towns.

They said their houses were set on fire on the directives of an influential landlord of Daulatpur.

They said that about 300 acres of the disputed land for which a case was in the court was also reclaimed in the operation.

The affected villagers have appealed for justice.

CANE CRUSHING: Mills in the district were not receiving an adequate quantity of sugarcane making it difficult to continue the crushing.

The resident director of the Habib Sugar Mills, Mr Muhammad Yousuf, said that the mill started crushing on Nov 1 and issued indents for 80,000 maunds per day.

He said they crushed 2,900 maunds on Nov 1, 39,000 maunds on Nov 2 and there was no cane for crushing on Nov 3.

He said that indents were being issued for 80,000 maunds per day to selected growers but the cane was not reaching mills.

He said the labour used by all mills mostly come from the NWPF and a very little number had reached due to Ramazan and Eid.