LARKANA, March 18: Thousands of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz activists set out on a long march from Sukkur to Karachi on Sunday in protest against enforced disappearances of political workers in Sindh and Balochistan, plunder of Sindh’s natural resources and sale of two islands.

Many big and small caravans from different parts of the province began pouring into Sukkur since early morning and converged outside the central prison from where they started their long march after paying tributes to Shaheed Heemo Kalani, a hero of anti-colonial freedom struggle who was hanged in the prison.

Many groups of workers were clad in white cloth, which is used for wrapping up bodies before burying them, a symbolic gesture indicating their readiness to die for the cause.

The marchers, carrying flags, banners and placards assembled at the Clock Tower amid tight security where party leaders JSQM Chairman Bashir Qureshi and other leaders addressed them.

The leaders said that outsiders had captured Sindh’s resources, robbed its irrigation water, made political workers disappear and sold out islands to foreigners.

Mr Qureshi who is leading the march told Dawn while speaking from Babarlo over cell phone that the march had received warm welcome. He described the march as “Paigan-i-Sindh” and said they wanted to tell the world through the march about the injustices being meted out to Sindh.

The province’s natural resources were being seized, land and islands being sold, educated youths were being sacrificed at the altar of unemployment, he said.

He said that the rulers had not only deprived people of their rights over natural resources but had also been threatening them with the construction of Kalabagh Dam.

Mr Qureshi said that agencies had picked up political workers in Sindh and Balochistan and kept them at undisclosed locations. The campaign would continue until they were released, he vowed.

He said that the agencies had picked up six JSQM workers in Naushahro Feroze on Sunday but let them go in the evening and also snatched workers in Hyderabad. They, too, were later released, he added.

He said that he had no more information about arrests of workers in any other part of the province. The long march would take 25 to 27 days to reach Karachi by covering 30 kilometres a day, he said and demanded the government should disclose the whereabouts of Dr Safdar Sarki, Asif Baladi, Bashir Shah and other disappeared activists.