Sindh, March 20 (IANS) Several rallies were held across Pakistan’s Sindh on Thursday as a part of the ongoing province-wide protest against the federal government’s plan to construct six canals on the Indus River.
The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) organised a rally from the old campus of the University of Sindh to the Hyderabad Press Club, demanding that the federal government shelve the canal project.
Additionally, many political parties, activists, farmers,doctors, and students took out protest rallies in different parts of Sindh in protest against the construction of canals, local media reported on Thursday.
Reiterating their demands, the SCA participants on Wednesday stated that the federal government must immediately issue a notification to halt the execution of canal projects, including the Cholistan Canal and the Green Pakistan Initiative.
In his speech at the press club addressing a large number of farmers, SCA President Zainul Abideen Shah said that no canal, including the Cholistan Canal, was acceptable to growers and added that he believed this canal was aimed at rendering Sindh completely barren.
“The five million people of Sindh consider the Cholistan Canal and other such canal projects as a threat to their existence. This is because the country’s reservoirs do not have enough water to sustain additional canals,” the leading Pakistani newspaper, The Express Tribune, quoted Shah as saying.
Meanwhile, the Qaumi Awami Tehreek (QAT) party organised a rally in Tandojam, Sindh to record protests against canals and corporate farming.
The party president Ayaz Latif Palijo, who led the rally, said that Sindh had been handed over to the land mafia. Cholistan and other canals would deprive Sindh of its water permanently as Sindh’s survival was directly linked with the Indus.
Last month, during a protest against the canal projects, Palijo delivered a speech in which he argued that the new canals being constructed as part of the Cholistan project represent an attack on Sindh. He claimed that these canals would devastate the province’s agricultural landscape, displace millions of people, and exacerbate poverty.
In Nawabshah city of Sindh Province, demonstrations were held by activists of Jeay Sindh Mahaz to register protests against the construction of canals. The protesters took out a procession and warned of blocking roads if the canals project was not cancelled, reports leading daily, Dawn reported
In recent weeks, the entire province of Sindh has been gripped with protest movements against Pakistan’s federal government canal project on the Indus River.
Activists, members of various political parties, civil society outfits, trade unions, and literary associations are up in arms against the government which is constructing six canals on the Indus river.
The protests, echoing demands to “let the water flow,” have been held across the province as the citizens described such projects as “anti-people policies” and a “violation” of Sindh’s rights.
–IANS
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