Protests against new canals intensify

Nationalist parties block highways; confront PPP rallies heading to Bhutto's anniversary

HYDERABAD:

The Jeay Sindh Mahaz (JSM), amid protests interminably continue across Sindh against the proposed construction of six new canals on the Indus River, blocked the Indus and National highways at three different locations on Friday.

The JSM Chairman Riaz Ali Chandio, who led a protest rally on the National Highway in Moro, Naushehro Feroze district, said they carefully chose April 4 for their protest to neutralise the propaganda being spread by Pakistan Peoples Party.

"Unless the government issues the notification of cancelling all these controversial projects, the protests would continue," he warned.

Chandio reiterated that the Green Pakistan Initiative, new canals and the corporate farming are all meant to rob Sindh of its water and land.

"It is an economic murder of the entire population of Sindh which is dependent on agriculture." He claimed, the PPP is organising cosmetic protests in the province although it has given its consent for the construction of new canals. Dr Niaz Kalani of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) deplored that the people who participate in peaceful protests are being subjected to enforced disappearance besides being nominated in flimsy FIRs. However, he asserted, the protests are becoming stronger with each passing day despite all the pressure tactics being employed by the government.

Meanwhile, Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party Chairman Dr Qadir Magsi announced that his party would start sit-in protests on the highways in the province from April 10. He said every day a different location of the highways will be selected for the sit-in. "The ongoing protests against the canals and the corporate farming have turned into a movement which won't stop."

In a novel form of protest, a bride made it mandatory for the groom to affix banners rejecting canals at their wedding function in a village in Shahpur Jahania area of Noushehro Feroze district on Friday. The couple, whose marriage was later solemnized in the afternoon, belong to Unar community. Not only banners were put on walls of the wedding hall, but the place reverberated with songs and slogans of nationalists and disapproval for the canals. Rallies and demonstrations were also organised in dozens of other places in many districts of the province.