HYDERABAD: Sindh Progressive Committee (SPC), an alliance of left-leaning parties, has urged Supreme Court to implement its May 4, 2018, decision that called for shelving ‘illegal’ Bahria Town Karachi project.

The committee leaders, who met here on Wednesday with the body’s convener Bakhshal Thalho in the chair, demanded release of Sindh Action Committee leaders and activists and withdrawal of cases lodged against them in the wake of June 6 protest outside BTK.

The meeting, attended by Latif Leghari, Javed Rajpar, Imdad Qazi, Iqbal Khan, Dr Aslam Pervez Umrani and Abdul Khaliq Junejo, said the SPC would hold protests in all district headquarters on June 27 in line with decision of Sindh Indigenous Rights Alliance. Awami Workers Party had also given a call for protests along with their allies across the country, it said.

The meeting said that provincial governments had sold the country to multinational companies, financial institutions and tycoons like Malik Riaz. Resources of people and nations were being looted whereas indigenous people were being deprived of their land through fear and other temptations, it said.

It was being done through a two-pronged strategy, on the one hand katchi abadis in the cities were being demolished and on the other agricultural lands were being used for housing projects only to produce chaos in future, said the meeting.

The meeting noted that labour force that lived in katchi abadis in city centres would be displaced whereas conversion of agricultural land for the purpose of housing schemes would lead to environmental disaster and social disorder.

Bahria Town, DHA and Commander City, Thar coal and Ravi Urban projects were some examples of such “disastrous” schemes, said the meeting.

The meeting called for provision of alternative accommodation or compensation to people who were displaced by government action for clearing embankments of Gujjar and Orangi nullahs in Karachi of obstructions.

The meeting said that natural waterways in Kachho and Kohistan should not be blocked and demanded legislation to check influx of “outsiders” and their settlement in Sindh.

SUKKUR: Activists of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) took out a rally in Kandhkot town in protest against Bahria Town and arrest of party workers after June 6 protest outside BTK.

The protesters led by Akash Sindhi, Hafeez Sindhi, Wali Dino Sindhi and others held a protest at Library Square at the end of the rally by symbolically tying themselves in chains and affixing tape over their mouths.

They warned that if party head Sanan Qureshi, Amjad Mahesar and other leaders were not freed immediately and demolition of Sindhi villages was not stopped by Bahria Town, the workers would shed even last drop of their blood for the motherland.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2021