LARKANA, Oct 18: The lawyers community, affiliated with the Sindh High Court Bar Association and the District Bar Association, jointly took out a procession on Saturday to protest the construction of the greater Thal canal and the Kalabagh dam.

Led by the president of District Bar Association, MPA Ayaz Soomro, the lawyers marched on the main roads of the city.

Carrying banners and placards and chanting slogans against the controversial water projects, they converged at the Pakistan Chowk where they staged a sit-in.

Speaking to the gathering, Ayaz Soomro, Abdul Razzak Soomro and others warned the Centre to stop the construction of the Thal Canal which, according to them, was being built against the will of the people and could only generate dangerous results.

They further said the rulers had blindly bulldozed the twice-passed resolution of the Sindh Assembly against the project.

They said that in the past, when military dictators used force to refuse basic rights to East Pakistanis, it ended in the disintegration of the country, and now, the government was imposing the construction of the Thal canal on the people and also planning to construct the Kalabagh Dam in future. This, they said, would drastically harm the country.

Earlier, a joint meeting of both bar associations, held under the chairmanship of the president, Sindh High Court Bar Association, Abdul Razzak Soomro, reproached Islamabad for the ‘uncivilized’ ways of state functionaries that not only hindered the peaceful procession of the lawyers but also baton charged it.