SQM opposes water projects

Published September 15, 2003

MULATN, Sept 14: The Seraikistan Qaumi Movement (SQM) has opposed all the water projects President Gen Pervez Musharraf proposed in his televised address to the nation on Saturday.

In a press statement issued here on Sunday, SQM chief Hameed Asghar Shaheen said the people of Seraiki area would not accept the projects of Kalabagh Dam and Greater Thal Canal until having their own province.

He said the Seraikis could not be hoodwinked in the name of water channels and subsequently more cultivable lands because the past experience had told them that “Punjabi military and civil bureaucracy would devour their resources and made them (the Seraikis) Red Indians on their homeland.”

Mr Shaheen accused the Sindhi and Seraiki landlords of becoming stooges of the military and civil bureaucracy. “Their criminal silence has encouraged the Punjabi establishment to eye whatever remains in Sindh and the Seraiki belt.”