PESHAWAR: Awami National Party’s central vice-president Ghulam Ahmed Bilour has expressed concern at the Supreme Court’s hearing of a case seeking Kalabagh Dam construction when three provinces have already rejected it.

“It is not a technical issue, but a humanitarian issue and a matter of life and death for provinces like Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. It is a matter of country’s stability,” said Mr Bilour at a press conference called at his residence in Peshawar on Wednesday on the issue that had been central to his party’s politics since decades.

He said that the SC had taken up the case at a time when general elections were scheduled for next month. The consensus and views of all the provinces and political parties should have been taken on it, he said.

“Around a dozen decisions have been made on the Kalabagh Dam issue, but Punjab’s aristocracy is behind bringing the issue to the court to take advantage of the situation and time,” said Mr. Bilour.

He said that the Supreme Court had already sent back the issue to parliament to decide on it. He said that it was strange that the issue was again taken up by SC. “Punjab’s opportunistic aristocracy has brought up the issue to the court, but we – Sindh and KP – would use any strategy to foil the attempt,” he said.

Mr Bilour said that Kalabagh Dam was not the only solution to ongoing power outages in the country and other dams like Katzara and Bhasha dams could resolve the issue.

He said ANP would decide soon to either become party in the court or not, but expressed his distrust as the court had taken up an issue which was already decided on forums like parliament and rejected by provinces. “This (Kalabagh Dam) is going to destroy us; it will destroy Sindh and the entire country. How can SC hear a case threatening country’s stability,” said Mr Bilour.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2018