LARKANA, Aug 3: Police used batons against rice growers while they were protesting against water shortage at a bridge of Rice Canal here on Friday.

Seven protesters were arrested and booked in a case registered on behalf of the state.

Farmers from Mubarak Kalhoro, Buthee, Ranwtee, Ali Mohammed Aheer and other villages came to the city on tractor trolleys and blocked the road at the bridge of Lahori regulator.

They were shouting slogans about water shortage in Koor Datoo Shakh originating from Gharwah which, they said, was destroying their paddy nurseries and hampering the transplantation.

Carrying sticks, they burnt tyres and suspended vehicular traffic for three hours.

A heavy continent of police, led by SHO Syed Ameer Shah of Civil Lines, arrived there and asked the protestors to disperse. But they refused to do so unless an irrigation official assured them of an improvement in flows in the canal.

Police resorted to baton charge which caused minor injures to two peasants, Rauf Kalhoro and Nazeer Ahmed Kalhoro. ASI Sardar Ali Bugti was injured in the ensuing scuffle.

Police picked seven protesters up and took them away to the Civil Lines police station. Police also impounded three tractor trolleys.

Azad Chandio and other protesters reached the press club and told journalists that on the one hand they did not have enough water to irrigate their land and, on the other, they faced police action when they resorted to protest.

They said that water level in Gharwah was at 10 feet and they would not be able to transplant paddy seedlings if the level did not rise to 12 feet.

When contacted, irrigation officials kept on assuring them of an increase in water flow but it was nowhere to be seen, they said.

They demanded release of arrested growers and release of more water in Gharwah and Koor Datoo Shakh.

Meanwhile, police have registered an FIR against 20 growers on the compliant of ASI Bugti. They have been accused of attacking policemen, hurling threats at them and blocking road.

Those nominated in the case include arrested protesters Mukhtiar Magsi, Abdulllah Kalhoro, Abdul Malik Siyal, Naveed Chandio, Zahid, Khalil Ahmed Kalhoro and Ghulam Shabir Aheer and 13 unidentified farmers.