HYDERABAD, Sept 19: About one hundred activists of the Awami Tehrik (AT) and the Sindh Water Committee (SWC) observed a hunger strike for six hours outside the press club here on Thursday to protest against the proposed reconstitution of Irsa.

A large number of advocates, Sindh National Party president Dr Dodo Mehri and PML-F leader Muzaffar Sadiq Bhatti also joined the hunger strike to express solidarity with the SWC.

Talking to newsmen, the chief of the AT and the SWC, Rasool Bux Palejo, who led the protest, said after the reconstitution of Irsa, Sindh would be totally deprived of irrigation water as the distribution and allocation of water resources would be in the hands of the central government.

He said for all practical purposes the central government was synonymous with the Punjab government.

He regretted Punjab was not prepared to accept even the ineffective and dummy representatives of the provinces.

Palejo said Irsa was being reconstituted because the government wanted to induct its own candidates into power through “fraud election” and for this purpose, he said, Punjab was being bribed in the shape of having total control over the water resources.

The AT chief deplored Sindh was being handed over to terrorists and added dummy candidates had already sold their conscience to them.

He said the government wanted to convert Sindhi people into a scheduled caste.

Palejo said even the governments of Gen Ziaul Haq and Nawaz Sharif were better than the present government.

He regretted when the local sugarcane crop was ready to be crushed, anti-Sindh functionaries imported sugar which badly affected the sugarcane growers. Similarly, he said, when the chili crop was ready, the import of chili was allowed.

He wondered why the NAB had not instituted criminal proceedings against these government functionaries who allowed the imports of sugar and chili despite the local crops were ready.

The SWC chief said the Thal canal was being constructed to irrigate barren lands of bureaucrats.

He urged the NAB to make inquiries as to how many generals and other government functionaries were allotted lands on the Thal canal.

He demanded the Thal canal project should be shelved.