Sindh-Punjab transport blocked for 11th day as protests against Indus canal projects escalate

SINDH(Pakistan): Protests against controversial canal projects that draw water from the Indus River have persisted for the eleventh consecutive day across various areas of Sindh. The Balochistan Post (TBP) reports that as a result of these demonstrations, all transport routes from Sindh to Punjab have been entirely obstructed for the past eleven days.

Demonstrators have stated that they will keep all highways from Sindh to Punjab closed until every canal project built by Punjab on the Indus River is dismantled and military companies exit the occupied lands in Sindh. They have also declared their intention to escalate their movement, according to TBP.

During these protests, there have been instances of violence, leading to the detention of several people by the police. In this context, the Jiye Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Bashir Khan Group has announced the shutdown of all rail lines and stations linking Sindh to Punjab on May 11, as noted by the TBP report.

Additionally, other nationalist parties have signalled their plan to broaden the protest movement throughout Sindh and arrange large marches in Karachi and Hyderabad. In several locations in Sindh, public anger has manifested in surrounding Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) offices, as cited by the TBP report.

Sit-ins at border locations such as Babarlou and Sukkur have entirely halted all passage from Sindh to Punjab over the past eleven days. The transport of food and goods from Sindh to Punjab, including shipments from ports in Karachi, has been suspended indefinitely, leaving thousands of containers stuck on Sindh’s highways, according to the insights provided by TBP.

These protests and sit-ins continue in Sindh in opposition to the federal government’s initiative to extract six new canals from the River Indus, with nationalist parties, legal professionals, farmers, writers, and members of civil society denouncing it as an effort to seize Sindh’s water resources, as reported by TBP.

The USD 720 million project, introduced under the “Green Pakistan” initiative, seeks to redirect water from the Indus to cultivate agricultural land in the Cholistan desert for a military-run agribusiness. Detractors argue that this plan infringes upon Sindh’s water rights and could greatly harm its agricultural industry, as highlighted by the TBP report. (ANI)