SUKKUR: Jaddojehad Action Committee, a local alliance of political and civil society organisations which had come together for the resolution of the town’s chronic civic issues, took out a big rally in Thull on Wednesday in protest against “massive corruption” in drinking water scheme that had delayed its completion.

Leaders and activists of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Jamaat-i-Islami, Sindh Uni­ted Party, Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party, Qaumi Awami Tehreek and several other political, religious, nationalist, trade and civil society organisations participated in the day’s protest, which was part of an ongoing movement against apparent rampant corruption in the town’s development schemes.

The protesters braved scorching heat as they gathered at Jongal Mor from where they started the rally and moved towards the press club where they held a sit-in.

The leaders including SUP’s Jagdesh Ahuja, JI’s Hafiz Nasrullah Channa, Roshan Kunrani of QAT and others said that during 12-year-long rule of Pakistan Peoples Party, only leaders and elected representatives of the party including ministers, advisers and MPAs had seen progress in personal properties at the expense of common man.

They said that the ruling clique had eaten away public funds through corruption of billions of rupees like locusts which had wreaked havoc with Sindh’s green fields. Rulers had snatched even the few facilities of education, health and water supply that they used to have in past and changed them into ruins, they said.

They demanded investigation into alleged Rs580 million corruption in the drinking water scheme, unearthing of all the characters involved in the crime against public and awarding of exemplary punishment to them.

They said the scheme was approved in 2013 by then MPA late Mir Hassan Khoso. Afterwards, PPP MPA Dr Sohrab Sarki had its cost revised in order to “favour” the corrupt contractor of the scheme in connivance with officials concerned and usurped all the funds, they alleged.

They alleged that the MPA was getting “commission” in advance from all contractors and awarding the schemes’ contracts to the highest bidders. As a result, the material used in the schemes was often found to be substandard and they were delayed extraordinarily.

They called for completion of the scheme without further delay and resolution of all other civic problems of the town at the earliest. Otherwise, they would continue the protest movement, they warned.

They said that people had woken up now and thousands had taken the field against the “political locusts”. Thull had become a leading light of revolutionary struggles as people of different walks of life

were not only united but also proactive in their movement for basic facility of drinking water.

On June 20, Thull police launched a crackdown against Jaddojehad Action Committee and lodged an FIR against 142 activists for violating standard operating procedures by staging a big protest in the town a day earlier.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2020