LARKANA, July 7: An unspecified number of people and several policemen were injured when activists of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) clashed with police on the eve of Dharna (sit-in) organized by the Mahaz here on Sunday.

The Mahaz had urged its activists and supporters all over Sindh to join the protest against the construction of the Thal canal, and other such ‘anti-Sindh’ projects as well as to press the government for the release of the JSQM leaders, including its president, Bashir Khan Qureshi.

Hundreds of people started pouring in and join the protesters in Larkana where strong contingents of police had been deployed at all the public properties, banks and important installations.

The authorities did not permit the protesters to stage a sit-in. As the JSQM leaders first remained undecided over the venue for the sit-in, the protesters marched through the streets of the town in a procession with police remaining on the side-lines.

A good number of people had converged on the Rice Canal’s Lahori Regulator and started marching towards the city.

However, as soon as the protesters assembled at Lahori Mohallah Road and tried to stage their sit-in, police led by the ASP City, Mohammed Alam Shinwari, moved swiftly to disperse them. Police also tried to arrest the acting chairman of the JSQM, Shafi Karnani.

The intervention provoked a sharp reaction from the protestors who started pelting stones at police, the nearby shops and buildings and passing vehicles.

Responding to agitation, police first baton-charged the unruly mob and then fired tear-gas shells to control the situation.

However, the action aggravated the situation and police had to fire blank shots.

As protesters continued to counter the police action whole the day in the trouble area, several mobs of agitators turned their attention to other areas of the city and forced shopkeepers to pull down shutters.

Violence also spread to many other localities, including fish market, Pakistan Chowk and Shaikh Zaid Chowk. Business activities in the entire town were suspended within a couple of hours after the clashes began.

Reports from the area said that no one was killed or injured in police firing but a number of activists sustained wounds in clashes with police.

A head-constable and two constables were also slightly wounded while one of the police mobile was damaged.

Five banks came under attack during the rioting and reports said that damage was caused to their main gates, windows and auto-teller machines.

A building housing the State Life Insurance, a Hesco office, the Wapda Union hall and a number of shops came under mob attacks in the trouble areas.

At least 30 people were rounded up during the violence. They included two injured activists, Fayyaz Khamisani and Shabir Panhwar. Panhwar reportedly sustained tear-gas shell injuries and his condition was serious at Taluka police station when last reports came in.

The injured policemen were identified as Muhammad Bakhsh Gopang Abdul Malik and Abdul Majeed Chandio.

The president of Medical Stores and Pharmaceutics Association, Larkana, Habibullah Shaikh, said that an employee of a medical store, Arshad Hussain Bhutto, was picked up by police without assigning any reason. He further stated that the association had to intervene for his release but the victim had already been beaten up severely by then.