KARACHI: Awami Tehreek, Awami Workers Party and Jeay Sindh Mahar-Riaz staged protest demonstrations and sit-ins outside the Karachi Press Club and several other cities and towns of Sindh on Sunday against plans for new canals and dams over the Indus River.

Leading the sit-in, Advocate Vasand Thari, Hoor Alnisa Palijo, Noor Ahmed Katiyar, Abdullah Bapar, Zubair Noonari, Khalid Tanio, Imtiaz Mirani, Naveed Abbas Kalhoro and Iqbal Jarwar of the Awami Tehreek and Pirha Soomro of the Sindhiani Tehreek also strongly condemned proposed amendments to the Irsa Act.

They said the amendments would allow the federal authorities to build 30 dams, thus threatening Sindh’s share in the Indus water.

The AT leaders said the move was a violation of both international law and regional water agreements, and accused Punjab of taking undue advantage of its upper riparian position to deprive Sindh of its essential water resources.

Meanwhile, Jeay Sindh Mahaz Chairman Riaz Ali Chandio has said that Indus River was a source of the survival of hundreds of thousands of people. The Indus River is only lifeline of Sindhi people. After creation of Pakistan, the 1945 ordinance was violated when the federal authorities started construction of illegal canals over the Indus and cultivated their lands leaving Sindh’s lands barren.

He said the call for this sit-in at KPC was given to record protest against illegal project in the form of Green Pakistan by Irsa and the brutal murder of Dr Shah Nawaz Kunbhar.

Awami Jamhoori Party chief Mumtaz Hussain Brohi, Nazeer Ahmed Shaikh, Deedar Jalbani and other leaders also took part in the protest.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2024