ISLAMABAD, June 1: Former prime minister and chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, has rejected plans for auctioning fishing rights in Sindh and said that it amounts to depriving local fishermen of their traditional source of livelihood.

The provincial government has announced a two-month schedule for leasing out all the fishing rights in the province.

Ms Bhutto, in a statement issued by her party office here on Tuesday, said that the new system deprived fishermen of their due share of the catch and also banned them from selling their catch in the open market.

Moreover, she said, the system harmed the fishing grounds owing to the use of chemicals meant for increasing the catch, and eventually, threatened to irreversibly exhaust the fish supply.

Tens of thousands of fishermen and their families had been protesting against the abolition of the decades-old licence system and introduction of the exploitative contract system, she said, adding that the government had acted against the fishermen by arresting them and sealing off the offices of their representatives.

“The demand of the fishermen not to abolish the existing licence system is lawful, in accordance with the past practices and consistent with the Sindh Fisheries Act 1980,” the PPP chairperson said. Arresting those who were demanding restoration of their rights was adding insult to injury, she maintained.

She demanded that the leaders of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum and other fishermen should be released.

“The forcible ejection of the tenants of Okara and other military farms in Punjab, the uprooting of fishermen in Sindh and the sacking of labour and civilian employees shows how dictatorship hurts the rights of the people,” she said.

She said that what was happening at military farms in Punjab and in fishing grounds in Sindh as well as the induction of the armed forces personnel on civilian posts could only increase the isolation of the security personnel from the people. This, she added, was detrimental to the morale of the security forces.

Ms Bhutto said that the PPP would continue to support the struggle of the fishermen of Sindh and would participate in the All-Parties Conference against the contract system scheduled to be held in Karachi on June 8.