On 11 May 2003, Amer Ali, a 60-year old peasant of Chak 4-L of Okara district, made his last good-neighbourlyvisit to the adjoining village, Chak 5-L. As the old man hobbled out of his hosts' house to see what was goingon, he was cut down by a hail of bullets. Amir Ali was the seventh to have died in recent months in the bitterstruggle between the peasants of Okara and the Pakistan Army Rangers, now into its third year. Coincidentally,just hours earlier, a group of journalists from the Urdu press and concerned citizens, including myself, hadset out from Islamabad on a fact-finding mission.