BADIN, July 24: Leaders of the Anti-Greater Thal Canal Action Committee have reiterated their opposition to construction of Thal canal and Kalabagh dam projects.

Speaking at a public meeting held at the station ground here on Friday, they said construction of the disputed projects would not be accepted.

The committee leaders, belonging to different political and nationalist parties, announced that a joint struggle would be launched against the rulers who, according to them, were imposing dictates of Punjab and hatching a conspiracy to destroy Sindh.

Speaking at the meeting, the Sindh People's Party Parliamentarians president and leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, said opposition of people to construction of the Kalabagh dam was so strong that even Sindh Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim had taken refuge behind a national consensus on the issue.

He said since the inception of Pakistan, the establishment and army generals had been trampling over the Constitution, provisional autonomy and moral norms to repress the small nations.

He said there was no provision in the Constitution that a man in uniform could appoint himself as a chief executive and rule the country.

Mr Khuhro regretted that people were committing suicide due to the deepening sense of injustice, haplessness, poverty and insecurity but the government was bringing corrupt people in the cabinet. He in this regard referred to some politicians who were facing corruption charges but had been handed over different ministries. It was an injustice with people that the corrupt ministers would run affairs of the country, he further said.

Awami Tehrik leader Rasool Bux Palejo in his speech said no water accord had been signed after the 1991 accord. He observed that the so called accord of 1994 was not in practice as it did not exist in the shape of a written document.

He held President Gen Pervez Musharraf responsible for the loss of lives and damages to crops and land degradation in Badin and Thatta district due to shortage of water.

Mr Palejo welcomed a statement of the chief minister against construction of the Kalabagh dam but said he was sceptic that Dr Rahim would take a stand on his words.

He accused the rulers of usurping rights of Sindh andinterfering into affairs of the province.

He said the government had unleashed a propaganda in favour of what he termed anti-Sindh plans and had refused to listen to voice of people of Sindh.

The AT leader said the only way to reach a consensus on the dam issue was to hold a dialogue and not to suppress the voice of dissent. He stressed the need for settling the water issue amicably.

Mr Palejo also criticized deployment of Rangers' personnel in the province.

The chairman of the Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party, Dr Qadir Magsi, said the water issue was not a political one and it was a matter of life and death for people of Sindh.

He said construction of the Kalabagh dam and the Thal canal would ruin Sindh lands.

He said Sindh should be given its historical water rights.

Dr Magsi said the struggle on the water issue would continue till it was resolved.

He claimed that the government was bringing Shaukat Aziz as the prime minister with a view to getting funds from donor countries for the disputed water projects.

He said people were against construction of the projects.

Among others, Sindh National Front general-secretary Gul Mohammad Jakhrani, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam leader Maulana Azam Jehangiri, Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Afzal Gujjar and MPA Pir Amjad Shah spoke on the occasion.