The long march for the recovery of missing persons, under the auspices of Sindh Sabha, was prevented from crossing the border from Sindh into Punjab on Wednesday while some of its organisers were put in prison on Thursday.
The march had started earlier this month from Karachi and was scheduled to culminate in Islamabad.
However, dozens of police mobile vans of the Ghotki district police prevented the march’s participants, who later staged a sit-in blocking the National Highway, from crossing the border. “The police have stopped us using the excuse of the coronavirus,” complained Inam Abbassi alias Sindhi, who was leading the march.
The protesters later pitched camp alongside the road to spend the night there. However, the police, in action taken in the evening, detained many participants, including women, and took them to the police station.
The incident sparked protests in several cities and a large number of nationalist workers and lawyers surrounded the Ubauro Police Station. The police released the detained women late night but handed over Sindhi and some other participants of the march to Matiari district police, which had booked them in an FIR on November 29.
The FIR, registered on the state’s behalf, had framed the charges of sedition against the state, armed forces and the intelligence agency when the march was in Bhit Shah to pay visit to the shrine of Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai. A local court in Matiari district on Thursday sent six persons, including Sindhito, to Hyderabad Central Jail on a 12-day physical remand.
Earlier, six persons were produced before the court in an armoured personnel vehicle. The march’s participants, led by Shazia Chandio, Sindhu Chandio and Punhal Sario, in reaction to the arrests and remand, staged a sit-in in Ghotki district. Several local leaders of nationalist parties visited their camp.
“The Ubauro Police violated human rights by assaulting our camp,” grumbled Chandio. She asked why were the marchers not stopped when they were moving from one city of Sindh to another city and why the FIR that was lodged a month ago kept inactive. They warned that their sit-in will not end until Abbassi and others are released by Matiari Police.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 1st, 2021.
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