STP protests over Indus River canal construction

In a tacit message to Punjab to dissuade the province's authorities from constructing more canals on the Indus river, Sindh Taraqi Pasand party blocked the National Highway in protest in Hyderabad on Saturday. The sit-in, led by STP's chairman Dr Qadir Magsi, was staged at Hatri Bypass which connects M9 Motorway from Karachi to the National Highway.

The goods transport from the metropolis Karachi passes through the National Highway to reach Punjab. The blockade lasted for more than six hours, creating long queues of heavy transport vehicles (HTVs) on either side of the bypass road.

"Indus river is the jugular vein of Sindh. Stopping its flows [by the upper riparian Punjab] amounts to massacre of 60 million people," warned Dr Magsi while addressing the protest. "Sindh will become a collective burial site."

However, he declared that until Sindhis are alive they will not allow any authority to build new canals on the Indus to deprive Sindh its due share of water. Dr Magsi advised Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to ask his elder brother and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's leader Nawaz Sharif what was the reaction of Sindh's people when he had announced construction of Kalabagh dam after the May, 1998, nuclear tests.

"Sharif [the then Prime Minister] was compelled to withdraw his announcement," he said. The STP's chairman blamed the PPP for having a record of trading Sindh's interests to sustain itself in power. He reiterated that Punjab and the federal government have always dishonoured their agreements with Sindh with regard to water sharing.

He recalled that under the 1991 water accord the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) has to release 10 million acre feet of water per month in the downstream of Kotri barrage towards the Arabian sea but the same agreement has been violated for decades.

Dr Magsi cautioned that their protest movement will continue until the government withdraws from its decision of building new canals on Indus. He informed that more sit-in protests on the highways will be staged on November 20 and November 24 in Nawabshah and Karachi, respectively.

Separately, speaking at a protest demonstration in Larkana district against construction of the six canals, PPP-Shaheed Bhutto's leader Junior Zulfiqar Bhutto said the river is the only lifeline for a majority of people of the province. "Our relationship with the river has continued for aeons with the ruins of Mohenjo Daro, being a living example." "Even our customs, traditions and rituals are connected to the river." He recalled that his father Mir Murtaza Bhutto used to keep water of the Indus river and the river sand with him during the time of his exile in 1980s in Damascus.