SUKKUR: A large numbers of people held a protest demonstration, sit-in and token hunger strike for three hours in front of the press club of Thull on Wednesday in the sweltering heat against massive corruption in drinking water scheme and non-completion of the plan.

According to reports, people belonging to political and social organisations held the protest under the banner of Jaddojehad Action Committee.

It was sad that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) rulers, who claimed to be champions of democracy, had failed in completing the drinking water scheme approved in 2013 at the cost of Rs580 million, said action committee leaders Jamal Josh Buriro, advocate Roshan Kunrani, Imdadullah Bijarani, Sarwaan Lashari, Sagar Fareed Soomro, Jan Mohammad Jafferi, Arz Banglani and others while speaking on the occasion.

They alleged that a PPP MPA had usurped the allocated funds of the scheme with the connivance of officials and the contractor. They said they had been protesting for the past seven years, but nobody was ready to listen to their voice for their basic rights.

The protesters said the citizens of Thull had woken up today and now the whole “Thull was demanding sweet drinking water”.

The leaders also said basic facilities, including education, health and others, had been snatched from them while all their institutions had been damaged, spoiling their future.

They said their healthcare centres had been converted into slaughterhouses as doctors had become butchers; public places had been occupied; millions of rupees’ funds received for developing parks/gardens and playgrounds had been usurped and the water filtration in the city had been damaged, but nobody was there to fix responsibility.

They said the sitting PPP MPA of Thull posed himself as “Z.A. Bhutto of Thull” after being elected six times, but he committed “atrocities and excesses” against the people of Thull through his “corrupt tactics”. Now they would not accept it anymore, they warned.

They vowed that for drinking water, they would knock the door of the National Accountability Bureau, Federal Investigation Agency, Anti-Corruption Establishment, the Supreme Court and Sindh High Court. They also threatened to stage a sit-in in front of the Sindh Assembly.

The leaders said their struggle would continue unless they were provided drinking water as they had come out after taking oath from the people of Thull.

They urged PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and other higher authorities to get the work of the drinking water scheme completed, hold an investigation into the corruption in the scheme and to take stern action against those involved in the corruption.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2020