Rally denounces move to allot 9,000 acres forest land to army

PFF demands government to provide data of the land allotted to DHA, Bahria Foundation and other housing schemes in Sindh 

A large number of riverine communities, hailing from different villages, located at the right bank of River Indus in Jamshoro District took out a protest demonstration on late Monday evening at Indus Highway at Manjhand to show their annoyance against the Sindh government’s recent move to allot around 9,000 acres of forest land to the army personnel.

The rally was organised by the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), which attracted both women and men, mostly belonging to peasant, herders and forest communities of the area to show resentment against the decision and demanding to distribute the same land among the landless poor peasant families of the area instead of giving it to other people.

Pyaro Shoro, organiser PFF Hari Tehreek Jamshoro District with hari activists Anb Kolhi, Mohammad Mallah, Bhagwandas, Shahzad Shaikh and community women led the rally which blocked the traffic for some time.

The PFF has already denounced the government’s decisions of land distribution to the army in the name of expanding Defence Housing Authorities (DHAs) depriving the local landless families and said now the government should stop this game and restore the forest and river ecology by planting more trees.

PFF Chairman Muhammad Ali Shah on the occasion issued the statement and urged the government to cancel all the orders of such land allocations and get back the land from mega projects like Bahria Foundation, extensions of DHAs and other schemes in the province.

The PFF has taken an initiative to mobilise all the environmentalists, academia, researchers, civil society, and farmers’ organisations to come forward and save the natural resources of the province and force the government to change its decision.

“When the entire world nations are struggling to plant forests and protect river ecology, here in Pakistan the government is violating the peoples’ rights, who even do not have two-meals a day in many areas due to poverty,” PFF Chairman Mohammad Ali Shah said.

The PFF leader said that recent heat waves, which have killed more than 500 people in Sindh’s capital city of Karachi and other urban and rural areas, should be enough for eye opening of the ruling elites. He said the temperature rise in day and night may cause destruction of human lives and crops. This could be disastrous if the government failed to take decision to plant more trees to avert this destruction by the nature, he added.

He asked the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), provincial and district disaster management bodies, to declare emergency as now was the time to take initiative and declare mass movement for trees plantations in each and every area of the province to increase tree covers to avert the heat waves and protect the rural economy of the communities.

“Keeping this in minds, the government should stop allotting fertile lands to the people in reward and retrieve the other lands, which have already been given to such mega schemes in the urban and rural areas, causing threats to the food security, displacement of human affected livestock sector settlements,” the PFF leader said.

He said DHA extension schemes had caused displacement of coastal communities. People in many flourishing localities who come under such schemes have been forced to shift to other areas without giving compensations, he complained. “These schemes had deprived these communities of their fish landing sites and other infrastructures. Now it should be stopped to snatch the lands and resources from the forest and riverine communities,” the PFF leader demanded.

Shah demanded the government to provide data that how many acres of land had been allotted to the DHA, Bahria Foundation and other housing schemes in Sindh as the people have right to know about these decisions being made in secret places.

He said on one side peoples were being shown as if PPP-led government was accusing law enforcement agencies of taking lead on their own in the political affairs, while the other they were giving public property of the people to such government agencies.