July 07, 2008	Monday	Rajab 3, 1429

HYDERABAD, July 6: A large number of tail-end growers of Ran Shakh of district Thar-parkar and leaders of civil society set up a token hunger strike camp outside the press club here on Sunday in protest against acute shortage of irrigation water.

They announced that the farmers would go on a long march on July 14. The march would start from the tail of Ran Shakh to 22-Mori and a sit-in would be held at Naukot.

They further said that on July 12, the farmers and peasants will stage a protest sit-in outside the office of SE irrigation of Mirpurkhas and on July 28, they will stage a sit-in outside the office of chief engineer irrigation Hyderabad for 100 hours.

They said on August 2nd they will stage a march from Hyderabad to Sindh chief minister’s house in Karachi.

The farmers of Goth Kaloi of taluka Diplo told journalists that former Sindh chief minister Arbab Rahim had spent tens of millions of rupees on the lining of Ran Shakh and taken out 42 watercourses illegally as a result of which, the tail-end growers were not only deprived of their share of irrigation water but also of drinking water.

They said the irrigation officials concerned were a privy to these excesses.