Sindhi peasants continued sit-in and hunger strike on 95th consecutive day against alleged irrigation water theft in the province by the feudal lords and their accomplices.
The growers, under the platform of Hari Committee, staged sit-in for 88 days in Khairpur, Sindh, to force Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah to address their grievances, but to no avail.
Hari Committee Chairman Ghulam Rasool said that they were totally disappointed by the Sindh government, so the office bearers decided to reach Islamabad.
Talking to this news agency, Rasool said that several members of the parliament are allegedly involved in water theft and their collaborators also follow them the same way. He added the provincial administration was reluctant to stop the water theft. He further said the Sindh irrigation secretary requested CM Qaim Ali Shah four times to deploy rangers in district Khairpur to stop the water theft. It is important that the issue is also under consideration of the provincial assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) under the chairmanship of MPA Jam Tamachi.
He further said that thousands of hectares of non-command areas in Sindh have been occupied by the feudal lords and their assistants. He said that according to the irrigation water regulations, the non-command areas are not authorised to receive irrigation water, but the influential land lords consume canal water illegally.
He said this situation causes severe scarcity of water for small farmers and peasants of Sindh and acres of cultivable land in the province have turned barren. He added that the peasants of Sindh first took up the issue in 2001 during former president Musharraf’s era and their movement still continues without any fruitful results.
The office bearers of the Hari Committee have demanded of the apex court to take notice of the situation.
