Sindh lawyers declare indefinite court boycott

The litigants in Sindh are set to bear the brunt of the legal fraternity's anti-canal protests as the lawyers staging a sit-in protest on the National Highway in Khairpur district have announced an indefinite boycott of the courts. The office bearers of Sindh High Court Bar Association and Karachi Bar Association, leading the sit-in protest camp in Babarloi, Khairpur, on Monday announced this decision before the press.

The KBA's President Advocate Amir Nawaz Warraich told the media that a meeting of the representatives of all the bar associations in Sindh has decided to widen the sphere of their sit-in protest by boycotting the courts. However, the plan to block the railway tracks in the province has been deferred for three days.

"We have also jointly decided that if the federal government does not notify cancellation of the canals project within 72 hours, we will demand Pakistan Peoples Party to leave the government," the lawyer said. According to him, another round of the lawyer's meeting will be held on April 24 and after that meeting they will announce if they are going ahead with the sit-in protests on the tracks.

Warraich apprised that two more locations of sit-in protest on the highways are being added to take the total number of the sit-ins to four in the province. According to him, the Karachi lawyers are expected to pick a place for the sit-in in their city while the three locations include Babarloi, Dera maur in Kashmore-Kandhkot district and Kamoo Shaheed, at the Sindh-Punjab border, in Ghotki district.

"An impression is being given that only the lawyers have been protesting in Sindh. To negate it, the doctors will observe a day-long strike across Sindh after one or two days," he shared. Warraich said the federal government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz should realise that the people of Sindh are making a simple demand.

"You have planned to experiment an unnatural process of irrigating a desert. It is an experiment which has already failed in India, UAE and South Africa." The lawyer warned that Sindh's people can not allow the centre to turn their province into a barren land in a bid to fertilise a desert.

Separately, SHCBA Hyderabad's President Advocate Ayaz Hussain Tunio, in an interview with a news channel, said that after the 72-hour-deadline, the blockade of the railway tracks will start from Rohri, Sukkur district. According to him, the meeting also discussed that the interprovincial traffic is still finding some routes in the province and which need to be closed. He said that their camp at Babarloi has not been provided adequate security, warning that in the event of any untoward incident DIG Sukkur and SSP Khairpur will be held responsible.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day the head of Darya Bachayo Tehreek Syed Zain Shah and Qaumi Awami Tehreek's President Ayaz Latif Palijo visited the camp at Babarloi to express support for the protesting lawyers. "What justice is it to make one province green by turning three others into deserts?" Palijo asked. He cautioned the rulers against playing with unity of the country by stopping the river from flowing towards Sindh.

Shah reiterated that the ruling elite will not only have to quash the canals project but the corporate farming plans as well.

The blockade of the highways has not only affected the movement of the interprovincial traffic but the people living in Sindh are also becoming affected. On Monday the Sindh University, Jamshoro, announced postponement of the examinations which were scheduled to start from April 22. "The new date and schedule will be announced when the situation of the roads and highways will be normalised," reads the circular.