HYDERABAD / BADIN: Sindh Untied Party (SUP) General Secretary Rohsan Ali Buriro has said that the May 20 violent incident in Moro was a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging peaceful campaign against controversial canals. Both Pakistan Peoples Party and establishment were involved in it, he claimed.
Speaking at a news conference in the Hyderabad Press Club on Thursday, Buriro said that PPP’s 18 years rule in the province was a story of massive destruction where police had turned into ‘PPP force’.
He said that the six-canals project, “approved by the presidency”, was stalled by Council of Common Interests following a sustained peaceful struggle, which culminated in a decisive sit-in at Babarloi Bypass, in Khairpur.
He claimed that the PPP government, unnerved by the successful agitation, avenged its defeat by plotting the Moro violence in collusion with the establishment. People were being harassed and intimidated in Moro and arrests were still being made on a daily basis, he said.
He said that unarmed people were targeted in Moro during the peaceful protest against the canals and corporate farming.
Activists of the Grand Democratic Alliance, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and SUP were being rounded up by police and all those who were opposed to PPP were being victimised, he said.
Buriro said that political loyalties of activists were being changed, their homes were being raided and sanctity of chador and char deewari was being violated.
He said that the PPP and establishment wanted to crush this movement, and vowed to continue the struggle.
He rejected police’s inquiry committee probing the Moro incident and demanded that a judicial commission headed by a well-reputed judge of high court should be formed to investigate the incident.
He stated that this commission should fix the responsibility after determining how the tragedy unfolded which resulted in the killing of Zahid Leghari and Irfan Leghari.
He called for release of all SUP activists, including Samad Bhatti, Israr Bhatti and their 12 year old cousin Arif Bhatti, and regretted that their whereabouts still remained unknown since they were picked up by police.
He demanded their immediate release and said FIR of Irfan Leghari’s killing should be registered with the consent of his heirs. The SUP would soon re-start its campaign against corporate farming and allotment of lands by Sindh government for private companies under the Green Pakistan Initiative, he said.
SUP’s Jagdesh Ahuja alleged that Irfan Leghari was killed by police and now Moro police were harassing SUP activists. Everything was scripted because a peaceful anti-canal struggle did not suit PPP regime, he said.
He said that PPP had decided not to withdraw the notification regarding the land allotments.
Awami Tehreek terms federal govt martial law
Similar views were expressed by Awami Tehreek (AT) leaders at a news conference in Badin Press Club on Thursday.
Advocate Vishand Thari, Noor Ahmed Katiyar, Abdul Sattar Rind, Abdul Qadir Ranto and others said that the PPP and establishment shared the same agenda, i.e. “to occupy Sindh’s lands and water”.
They said that the AT was running a Sindh-wide movement against usurpation of Sindh’s resources.
This peaceful struggle would continue until the objective was achieved, they vowed.
The AT leaders termed the incumbent PPP-PML-N dispensation “more dangerous than the martial law regimes of Gen Ayub Khan, Gen Ziaul Haq and Gen Musharraf”.
The current regime, in the name of democracy, was operating under the laws which were same as martial law, they observed and in this regard, mentioned the Prevention of Electronic Crime Act (Peca), Investment Board Act, 26th Constitutional Amendment and the Mines and Minerals Act.
They pointed out that Sindh had been facing a water crisis because it was not being given its rightful share in the Indus water.
“Water is being forcibly taken away through the CJ Link and TP canals,” they said.
They said Awami Tahreek believed that the PPP was complicit with Punjab in the plunder of Indus water.
Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2025
