NAWABSHAH: Jeay Sindh Mahaz-Riaz (JSM-R) Chairman Riaz Chandio has announced that his party workers would block highways on April 4 in its sustained agitation against federal government’s plan to extract six new canals from the Indus.

The Pakistan Peoples Party holds a mammoth gathering on April 4 every year at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto to observe the death anniversary of its founder chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister who was executed in 1979 after his government was toppled by armed forces in 1977.

JSM-R’s planned blockade of highways is feared to result in disruption of PPP workers’ journey to Garhi Khuda Bakhsh as several thousand of them, as usual, would be coming from all parts of the province in convoys of vehicles.

Riaz Chandio, speaking to local reporters on Saturday, disclosed his party’s plan to block highways on that day. He earlier visited the family of a missing party worker, Imtiaz Bhatti, in his house located in Sakrand.

Chandio told the media personnel that his party believed that ‘anti-Sindh’ plans like the six canals project, had tacit approval of PPP supremo and President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, his son and party’s Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah. “They are now trying to cover up their role,” he added.

Demands immediate shelving of canals project, end to ‘enforced disappearances’

He alleged that the current leadership of PPP had in the recent past compromised on the policies of their own leaders, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto [also a former prime minister], and was now compromising on resources of Sindh “to remain in power”.

He said that the masses, by joining the unending and widespread protests in Sindh against new canals and dams over Indus, had already given their decision against all such plans and projects.

He alleged that leaders and workers of various nationalist outfits were being picked up and kidnapped to create an atmosphere of fear and harassment among the masses. He demanded an end to such treatment. He claimed that Saghar Mallah and Imtiaz Bhatti were among the victims of ‘enforced disappearance’. He demanded immediate release / recovery of missing political workers and immediate shelving of the canals project. If the demands were not met, the ongoing protests would be expanded to every level, he warned.

The JSM-R chairman said that the ‘Save the Indus Committee’ would take important decisions on April 10 regarding the next phase of agitation, and added that people of Sindh would resume street protests after the upcoming Eidul Fitr.

Chandio also visited Moro to meet party workers and supporters there.

Meanwhile, JSM-R workers on Friday continued their protest, over alleged enforced disappearance of their fellow party worker, Imtiaz Bhatti, in Nawabshah by holding another demonstration outside the local press club.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2025