MIRPURKHAS: A big rally was taken out from Gymkhana Club to the local press club on Thursday by leaders, activists and supporters of various nationalist parties against federal government’s plan to dig six new canals to be fed through the Indus.

Office-bearers and members of growers’ bodies, legal fraternity, business and traders’ organisations and civil society organisations also took part in the rally.

The participants held a sit-in outside the press club during the protest, which was led by Sindh United Party (SUP) leader Syed Zain Shah and Sindh Abadgar Board leader Haji Mohammad Umer Bughio.

Carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans against “all anti-Sindh” projects, the participants marched through the main Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas road raising slogans against these projects, mainly the six canal plan.

Speaking to the protesters, Syed Zain Shah said that the canal project was a deep conspiracy hatched to render Sindh’s lands barren and deprive its people of even drinking water.

This project, he apprehended, would destroy Karachi, the industrial hub of the country, and Hyderabad, the second largest city of the province, economically.

The SUP leader said that a massive protest campaign across Sindh would be launched to press the federal government to shelve this project once and for all.

He warned that if the project was not shelved, then Sindhi people would block the highways leading to Punjab.

He pointed out that all mainstream political forces, nationalist entities and civil society organisations as well as business, trade and legal communities and legal fraternity had rejected this plan with one voice.

A joint struggle was under way and it would be intensified if the federal government appeared bent upon executing the project, he added.

The SUP leader said that Sindh had been facing an acute shortage of irrigation water for decades and the situation had aggravated to a great extent now.

The worst-hit areas included Mirpurkhas division and the Larr area as there had been no flows downstream Kotri Barrage.

This project would translate into a disaster in Sindh, he warned, apprehending that the situation might force hundreds of thousands of people to migrate to other provinces.

He said the people of Sindh would resist the project tooth and nail.

Sindh Abadgar Board’s Mirpurkhas president Haji Mohammad Umer Bughio, Mehmood Nawaz Shah, Zahid Bhurgari, Lala Azhar Pathan, Sarfaraz Junejo, Zulfikar Yousfani, and Mir Zubair Talpur also spoke at the sit-in, where Mumtaz Marri, Umeed Ali Thebo, Ali Hassan Chandio and other leaders were present.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2024