LARKANA: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has said that the latest comments of Supreme Court Chief Justice Saqib Nisar on the Kalabagh dam project disappointed and saddened him.

Speaking at a press conference at the local press club on Saturday, Mr Khuhro said that three of the four provincial assemblies in the country — Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — had time and again passed resolutions against construction of the Kalabagh dam. “I feel, the construction of the dam will harm the country,” he said, adding that “the CJP giving [his] opinion on it has saddened me”.

Referring to different studies and reports compiled by A.G.N. Abbasi, the books written by late Rasool Bakhsh Palijo and many other intellectuals, Mr Khuhro said the [execution of the] project was bound to divide the nation.

Says he is ready to face contempt notice

He said evolving a consensus on the project was not the job of the apex court, and added that if he was issued a contempt of court notice over his comments [on the CJP’s utterances], then he would react with what he called “contempt of people notice”.

In contravention of the 1991 accord, water had been released in Chashma-Jhelum link canal in the recent past, he recalled.

The CJP was well aware of all facts about the dam project, he said.

Mr Khuhro was accompanied by PPP Larkana district president Abdul Fatah Bhutto, former MNA Nazeer Bughio and city president Nooruddin Abro.

Peeping into past, the senior PPP leader said it was [former president] General Ziaul Haq who had coined the Kalabagh dam project but failed to get it executed.

General Pervez Musharraf was assured by his cronies, former Sindh governor Muhammadmian Soomro and Liaquat Jatoi, that they would succeed in evolving a consensus of all provinces on the dam project. “But time proved that they faced strong resistance to the project during their visits to Mehar and Badin.”

Mr Khuhro said that Bhasha dam should be built as it would be meant for generating electricity alone but at upstream Tarbela. He said Gen Musharraf should be asked why he had delayed the construction of Bhasha dam.

The PPP leader said that release of insufficient water into Kotri downstream had rendered around three million acres of fertile lands barren in Thatta alone.

Mr Khuhro said the SC should call the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) to question as to why it had failed to ensure an equitable water distribution among provinces.

Addressing the CJP, Mr Khuhro insisted that Irsa and Wapda be held responsible for the water crisis prevailing in the country.

In reply to a question, he said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had included construction of Kalabagh dam in its manifesto while the people sitting in the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) had always survived under “others’ umbrella”.

He argued that when Nadra ordered blocking of Gen Musharraf’s CNIC, then why courts were allowing him to file his nomination papers for the coming general election.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2018