SUKKUR: The personnel of district administration and irrigation department aided by a heavy contingent of police resumed on Wednesday the operation to clear embankments of Dadu, Rice and Khirthar canals of encroachments amid stiff resistance from encroachers.

At least 50 houses, 15 shops and two tea shops were demolished despite a barrage of stones being lobbed at the staff and the earth-moving machines by angry protesters. Later, police used batons to disperse the crowd.

The protesters’ leaders Abdul Rasheed Chauhan, Sher Mohammad Mirani, Kajlo Khokhar and others said that people got infuriated when policemen and staff of the irrigation department started throwing their household items and valuable belongings into canals.

They held protest at the city point bypass where the operation was conducted and then set up a hunger strike camp in front of the Sukkur press club, they said.

They said that they had been living on the canals’ embankments for the past 30 years. They were allowed to live there by the irrigation department officials in return for a fixed amount of bribe they collected regularly, they said.

They termed their displacement an injustice and warned they would continue the hunger strike till they were paid compensation or given an alternative place for living.

Local leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl and Pakistan Muslim League-Functional met the protesters at their protest camps and condemned the official action against them.

They said that instead of providing shelter to the poor the government was snatching roof from above the heads of people. They demanded the government should pay compensation money or provide alternative place to the occupants of dykes.

Sukkur Barrage executive engineer Khurshid Khokhar said that the action was being taken on the directives of Supreme Court of Pakistan.

He said the irrigation department personnel faced great difficulties in carrying out excavation, removing silt from canals and strengthening protective dykes because of the encroachments. They had issued warnings to the occupants before resuming the operation, he said.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Abdul Qadeer Ansari said that illegal constructions on canals’ dykes would be dismantled at all costs. The administration was trying to pay compensation or provide alternative place to the encroachers. A letter had been written to Sindh chief minister and chief secretary in this regard, he said.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2017