Laravel parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CLASS, expecting T_STRING

I developed a laravel application back in August this year, and it was working fine then. I am trying to run that application now, and it gives me this error:

parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CLASS, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or '{' or '$' in D:\bkonme\artisan line 31

And line 31 is like this:

$kernel = $app->make(Illuminate\Contracts\Console\Kernel::class);

My PHP version is 5.6.14 and I am using XAMPP on windows platform. I have some idea of it happening because of some version conflict between laravel and PHP, but i don't know how to resolve that issue, any help?

via Chebli Mohamed