LARKANA - Hundreds of poor growers and farmers of various villages blocked Larkana-Sukkur Highway at Jat-Bhutta village near Naundero on Monday against acute agriculture water scarcity in various watercourses coming out of Warah Canal including Salar Regulator.
All kinds of traffic came to standstill in this sizzling heat due to the huge demonstration as hundreds of vehicles on both sides of the highway were stuck up. The protesters shouted slogans against the government for making handmade water shortages in the areas. They also burnt bushes and tyres.
The road blockade continued for nine hours and then they themselves called it off with the announcement of staging a sit-in outside the offices of Executive Engineers of Right Bank and Warah Canal on 4th August against water shortages.
The protesters Waheed Bhutto, Wazir Chahwan, Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto, Kashif Abro, Waheed Abro and others alleged while talking to media that various watercourses coming out of Warah Canal have been closed down on the directions of Irrigation Minister Suhail Anwer Siyal and MPA Nadir Magsi and handmade water shortage has been made to make our fertile agricultural lands arid and dry. They further alleged that Siyal and Magsi along with irrigation department engineers accompanied by hundreds of armed men opened doors of the Salar Regulator due to which Warah Canal water level was reduced from seven and half feet to below five feet due to which their lands cannot get water to sow rice seedlings. They said not only they reduced the water level but they also took away the key and handle of the Regulator which is cruelty and not the job of an irrigation minister. They further said that the irrigation minister is of all the people of Sindh not only for MPAs and MNAs. They said that they stole our water but accused us of water theft which is high-handedness. They said we are also paying all revenue taxes like influential landlords and MPAs then why we are being discriminated against and treated differently. They urged Chief Justice of Pakistan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister to take notice of the injustice and also take action against irrigation minister Siyal, MPA Magsi and provide us with the required irrigation water so that unrest among us could end and we could be able to sow our paddy saplings.
DSP Murtaza Mirani, SHO Imamdin Chandio and assistant mukhtiarkar, Ratodero, Ansar Mangrio reached the spot and persuaded the agitating growers but they refused to call off their road blockade which continued for nine long hours in this scorching heat.
Suddenly they themselves postponed it with the aim to stage it again in front of offices of Engineers of the Right Bank and Warah Canal on 4th August to seek their just right.