The prominent farmers’ body Kissan Ittehad announced plans for nationwide protests from May 10, aimed at challenging the Pak Army’s decision to import the crop instead of procuring it from local cultivators.
Addressing a press conference on Sunday, Kissan Ittehad Chairman Khalid Khokhar declared that farmers across the country will take to the streets on May 10, protesting the administration’s choice to import wheat rather than purchase it from domestic farmers.
Khokar informed about the rampant corruption involved in wheat imports and said that those implicated should be executed. He said that the “wheat mafia” profited around 100 billion Pakistani rupees from the imports, while Pakistan suffered a loss of nearly $1 billion.
Nationwide Wheat Protests
According to the farmer leader, the “Pak establishment” raised the reserve rate for wheat to appease the “wheat mafia”. However, despite producing abundant crops, farmers were deprived of their earnings as authorities opted for imports instead of procuring locally, he said.
Therefore, Khokhar insisted that thousands of farmers would join the nationwide protests, as the ‘establishment’ had left them with no other way. He said that the Kissan Ittehad had approached the puppet Prime Minister, Army Chief, Director General of ISI, and the Minister of Food Security, but their concerns fell on deaf ears.
As a result, Khokhar urged civil society, media, lawyers, and the business community to lend their support to the farmers’ protest movement. He vowed that the demonstrations would remain peaceful but would persist until the ‘establishment’ agreed to procure wheat from local farmers.