DERA MURAD JAMALI: Farmers and landowners from the agricultural canals of Naseerabad, including the Table Branch and Manjhoti Branch, blocked the National Highway at Kajla Laro and staged a sit-in to protest what they described as the politically-motivated closure of irrigation water.
Hundreds of people participated in the protest, which was led by farmers’ leader Rais Nazim Khan Umrani, demanding the immediate restoration of water supplies to the agricultural areas.
Former Balochistan provincial minister Mir Sikandar Ali Khan Umrani said irrigation water was being deliberately shut off on political grounds, causing an “economic killing” of farmers and landowners. He claimed that the closure had rendered hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land barren, resulting in losses worth billions of rupees and severely damaging the agriculture sector.
He alleged that residents, farmers and landowners of the Table Branch and Manjhoti Branch areas were being subjected to injustice and economic exploitation as part of political victimisation.
“Never in the history of Naseerabad have farmers and landowners faced such injustice through the closure of irrigation water as they are facing today,” he said.
Mr Umrani said the protesters would not abandon the farmers and landowners and would stand by them against what he called injustice and political retaliation. He stressed that access to irrigation water was a legal right and that denying it amounted to political victimisation.
He questioned the chief minister and senior government officials over why farmers of the Table Branch and Manjhoti Branch areas were being deprived of irrigation water and why their agricultural lands were being rendered barren.
Mr Umrani warned that if the water supply was not restored immediately, the protest movement would be expanded.
Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2026
