Political row: Magsis fight irrigation cuts to flood lands

Magsi alleged that the administration were diverting the stagnant rainwater from Zardari farm towards his lands.

HYDERABAD:

The irrigation staff and the residents of some villages in Tando Allahyar crossed swords on Thursday as the latter tried to prevent them from making a cut in a natural water pool to protect their farmland from inundation.

The farmers of the former provincial revenue minister Dr Irfan Gul Magsi, living near Bachani Sugar Mills, gathered in large numbers and argued with the authorities against the decision. Magsi, who also reached the spot, alleged that the police and administration were diverting the stagnant rainwater from Zardari farm towards his lands.

“People are also supporting our point that there is no need to divert the water towards our land,” he told The Express Tribune. Magsi and his sister Dr Rahila Magsi, the former nazim of Tando Allahyar district, have recently become active in the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif stayed at their residence during his visit to Hyderabad.

Dr Rahila Magsi did not mince words as she directly accused the government of targeting them because they have joined the PML-N. “As soon as the party’s general secretary Ahsan Iqbal, who addressed a press conference in Hyderabad on Thursday, left my Hyderabad residence I was informed that the police and administrative machinery were set about to swamp our lands,” she told The Express Tribune.

She claimed that their area was being submerged to save the Bachani Sugar Mills which, she said, belongs to the president’s sister Faryal Talpur.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th,  2011.