HYDERABAD, June 22: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture on Sunday appealed to the government to ask sugar mills to pay dues to growers, and end water rotation programme, which had been turned into a pretext to deprive farmers of their right and sell water to influential landlords.

The chamber, which met here under its senior vice-president Mir Murad Ali Khan Talpur, said that despite repeated requests, the Sindh government had failed to make sugar mill owners clear outstanding dues of growers.

The meeting said that despite the fact that water was available in Kotri Barrage the tail-end growers were still deprived of their share in water.The meeting accused the irrigation officials of selling water to influential landlords and the highest bidders, and reminded the chief minister that he had announced the end of rotation programme for Nara Canal during his open katchehry in Mir Wah. But the programme continued as usual for the Khatian Minor, Sohrab Minor and many other channels, the grower leaders said.

Similarly, rotation programme continued uninterrupted for Naseer Canal thanks to inefficiency of the SE and the XEN, the meeting noted and demanded removal of inefficient engineers.

The meeting demanded that the government should provide electricity for tube-wells on fixed rates and give agricultural machinery at 50 per cent discounted rates. threat: The Sindh Punjabi Students Association (SPSA) on Sunday threatened to observe hunger strikes, demonstrations and wheel-jam strikes if its chairman and his relatives were not released and action was not taken against the police officials who had detained them.

The leaders of the association, Dr Naveed Choudhry and others said at a news conference at the press club that the chairman Malik Ayoub and his family members were paying the price for Mr Ayoub’s contesting elections against PPP MPA Fida Hussain Dero for PS-82.

They alleged that after winning elections, Mr Dero’s henchmen made an attempt on Mr Ayoub’s life, which left his 13 people, including cousin Malik Zulfiqar, Malik Riaz, Malik Irshad injured.

They said that an FIR was lodged but the following day the influential MPA managed to get a false counter FIR filed against 16 people, including Mr Ayoub.

They said that Mr Ayoub and his relatives obtained bail from the court to escape arrest but just a days afterwards on June 19, another murderous attack was made on him, in which his elder brother, Malik Khalid Akhtar was seriously injured, they charged.

They claimed that people managed to get hold of three attackers and handed them over to the SHO of Tando Adam police station but the police, instead of registering an FIR against the attackers, put Mr Ayoub and his relatives behind bars at the instance of MPA, they said.