Priya Kumari recovery protest camp dismantled after 27 days

Arrests, midnight crackdown on Babarlo sit-in trigger protests across Sindh; lawyers announce court boycott

HYDERABAD:

A midnight police operation to disperse a 27-day protest camp demanding the recovery of abducted children, including Priya Kumari, has ignited anger across Sindh, with demonstrations breaking out in several cities and the legal fraternity announcing a province-wide court boycott. Police arrested key organisers and removed protesters from the Babarlo National Highway sit-in after negotiations failed, triggering widespread condemnation from activists, journalists and political groups. The legal fraternity announced a boycott of the courts in the province today (on Friday).

The head of Priya Kumari committee Sohni Paras, president of Sukkur national press club Sahil Jogi and Liaquat Jalbani, are among those detained. The police began to disperse the protesters amid thunderstorm at around 2am on Thursday after SSP Khairpur Amir Saud Magsi held a final round of unyielding negotiations.

Magsi requested Paras to disembark from the mini truck from where she was making speeches and to sit with the officers to discuss the progress. She, however, kept replying in negative, asserting that the police should show progress by recovering some of the kidnapped children. She reminded Magsi that they suspended the first round of their sit-in on July 17 on the police assurance of showing progress by recovering some of the children within three days.

She told the SSP that the committee already gave them one extra day before taking recourse to the sit-in on the highway at the location of Babarlo in Sukkur, the same place where Sindh's legal fraternity had organised sit-in against construction of new canals in April, 2025.

She also recalled that the committee had given only five cases to the police on July 17. The photos of 17 children were displayed at the protest camp. The figure later increased to 27, according to the committee as one parent after another came up with details of their missing children. In the interim, the police recovered 16-year-old Asif Mughal from Noshera in KPK and produced her in a Sukkur's court, stating that she had married of her free will.

Half an hour after Magsi's brief talks, during which he raised slogan of long live Pakistan, the police descended upon the protesters. "Azaadi ja nara lagayan waran te lanat huje [curse the people shouting slogans of independence]," the SSP had shouted, as the crowd responded with the same slogan of long live Pakistan, clarifying that their slogans of freedom pertained to their children.

Meanwhile, journalists, lawyers, nationalist parties and other segments of society condemned the police action and demanded immediate release of the protesters. The Sindh Bar Council announced a province wide strike in the courts on July 24. The media workers, who complained that their co-workers were manhandled by the cops and their mobile phones and cameras were also santched, warned of staging a sit-in protest outside DIG Sukkur's office on Friday afternoon if Jogi is not released by Friday midnight.