HYDERABAD:
With vocal expressions of disapproval being reiterated time and again against building six new canals on the Indus River, the nationalist parties of Sindh organized protests and blocked highways in different parts of the province. Meanwhile Jeay Sindh Mahaz also blocked the National Highway in Shaheed Benazirabad district on Sunday, demanding safe recovery of the lawyer Aamir Ali Umrani who has allegedly been subjected to enforced disappearance.
The leader of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz, Sanna Qureshi, led a sit-in protest at Dera Mour in Kashmore-Kandhkot district on Sindh-Punjab border. The demonstration suspended the movement of inter-provincial traffic for several hours. “No dam, no canal is acceptable on the Indus River,” said Qureshi. “If we aren’t taken seriously, we are staging a sit-in today here and tomorrow it will be at another place.”
He lamented that the center has already snatched Sindh’s oil, coal and gas with water being the last important resource left with the province. Qureshi said lawlessness in the districts of Larkana and Sukkur divisions have made lives of the people miserable as citizens are left unprotected before dacoits. “After sunset these districts become no-go areas.”
He asked people to wake up and raise their voice to get their rights. “Sindh’s people have been divided through tribal clashes.” Qureshi said he will lead peace missions to visit all the tribes who are ensnared in tribal vendettas.
Separately, Qaumi Awami Tehreek’s leader Ayaz Latif Palijo also led a protest rally in Kashmore-Kandhkot to decry the center’s stubborn decision to go ahead with the canals’ project. “Don’t make Sindh a barren land under the garb of some development initiative for the country,” he warned.
He blamed the federal and provincial governments for suppressing farmers in Sindh by employing force. He blamed the Pakistan Peoples Party and its provincial government for having withdrawn from defending the rights of Sindh and its people.
Chairman JSM Riaz Ali Chandio, speaking at a sit-in protest on the National Highway in Shaheed Benazirabad district, demanded urgent release of Umrani from those detaining him illegally. “If he isn’t released in 24 hours, a shutter down strike would be called in Benazirabad.”
