LARKANA: For fear that their houses would be demolished, a large number of people residing on the banks of Rice Canal, Ghar Wah and Aabro Wah staged a march on Sunday under the banner of “Save Our Houses” and called for halting the action of dismantling their abodes. District leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) also joined the march, with a good number of women, which emerged from Lahori regulator of Rice Canal.

Muhammed Qasim Chandio, Qadir Aheer and other participants, including women carrying the Holy Quran on their heads, banners, and placards, marched on main thoroughfares while chanting slogans and converged on the Jinnah Garden gate where they staged a sit-in.

District PPP president MNA Khursheed Junejo, general secretary Aijaz Leghari, city party president Khair Muhammed Shaikh, Larkana district general secretary Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Muhabbat Khuhro and Serai Sarfraz Khokhar joined the protest and endorsed the demand of the residents in their speeches and appealed authorities stop the action.

Talking to reporters and in their speeches, the protest leaders claimed that the people residing on the banks of irrigation channels were settled covering 50 acres of land with around 10,000 houses built over there where some 200,000 people of lower and lower middle class lived. Presently 60-foot and 40-foot roads were constructed on the banks of Rice Canal and other channels, but the irrigation authorities were bent upon ejecting them, they said, adding that they had been living there for 40 years.

The authorities had announced on megaphones to vacate the houses within three days, giving the deadline of Nov 9, which had put the residents in fear to be unsettled, they said.

The protest leaders said their talks with the Larkana deputy commissioner and irrigation authorities to resolve the issue remained unproductive. Three review applications about the verdict were pending hearing in the court, they added.

They urged the government to lease out land to the people residing there since 1997 to alleviate their fear.

The PPP leaders said their party had the track record of providing people shelter. “We will take legal course to resolve the issue,” they announced.

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Sindh Chief Minister and provincial party president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro were not in favour of dislocating the residents as the PPP had provided electricity, gas and other facilities in the areas, they said.

PR demolishes illegal encroachment

The Pakistan Railway (PR) authorities demolished at least 200 illegal encroachments, including houses, hotels, shopping centers and other illegal constructions, in the jurisdictions of Bhan Saeedabad railway station in Dadu.

Railway police and officials with the help of heavy machinery removed the illegal encroachments at the left and right sides of the railway station in Sehwan taluka.

“About 200 Katcha and Pakka houses and other illegal constructions were removed in the jurisdiction of Bhan Saeedabad railway station during the operation launched following directives of senior officials of the department,” said Saqib Nisar, an official of the railway department.

A big number of people resisted the demolition and held a protest.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2020