LARKANA: Awami Tahreek (AT) organised a rally here on Sunday against proposed amendments to the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) Act, describing it as an ‘anti-Sindh’ move. It urged the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership to “stop befooling people with their speeches in parliament”.

The rally was led by AT Secretary Advocate Sajid Hussain Mahisar along with Noor Ahmed Katiyar, Mahnoor Malah and others.

The participants carrying party flags and placards and chanting slogans marched through various roads and assembled outside the local press club, where they held a sit-in.

Speaking to the participants and the media, the AT leaders said that the amendments were solely aimed at bringing over six million acres of barren lands in Punjab under cultivation “by trampling over rights of Sindh on the River Indus”.

They held the move “more dangerous than One Unit” and described it as a “black law in making”.

On the one hand, 13,00,000 acres of Sindh’s land was being grabbed in the name of projects and plans like corporate farming and, on the other, the Irsa Act was being amended to gain full control of the Indus, they said.

They declared that people of Sindh would not accept it as this would not be less than a robbery on Sindh’s water share. “We will oppose it tooth and nail as it is a conspiracy to harm Sindh,” they said.

They held that the move was in contravention of the Articles 154 and 155 of the Constitution.

They asked PPP leaders, including Syed Khursheed Shah, and other elected representatives to desist from deceiving people with their speeches on the floor of assemblies.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2024