SUKKUR: Nasirabad chapter of the Awami Tehreek staged an eight-kilometre foot march on Friday in protest against falling paddy prices, land grabbing, controversial canals project, worsening lawlessness and proposed amendments to Irsa act.

The protesters’ leaders including AT’s central general secretary Advocate Sajid Hussain Mahesar, Sindhi Hari Tehreek’s central president Comrade Ghulam Mustafa Chandio, Advocate Najeebur Rehman Mahesar and others said in their speeches that declining paddy crops were economically slaughtering poor farmers and growers.

The foot march began from Mondar Lakha village of and concluded in Nasirabad after passing through the villages of Jara Wahucha, Muradi and Panhwar. When the march reached Arthur Branch in Nasirabad, it turned into a convention.

The leaders demanded strict action against traders who bought of farmers’ hard-earned harvests low prices. The government-backed capitalists sold seeds and fertilisers on the black to force the farmers to take loans at high-interest rate, they said.

They said that farmers were being compelled to abandon their lands by offering them unfairly low prices for their produce. Local agriculture sector was being destroyed by government’s anti-farmer policies to pave the way for corporate farming projects, they said.

They said that under the guise of corporate farming, 4.8 million acres of land in the country, including 1.3 million acres in Sindh, was being handed over to foreign investors.

They said that corporate farming projects planned to seize fertile farmlands and amendments were being made to the Irsa Act to sell water of the Indus River to foreign investors.

After amendments to the Irsa Act, Sindh’s water would be sold to foreign investors for corporate farming. Six new canals were also being constructed to divert water to the corporate farming projects after blocking Sindh’s water but people of Sindh would not allow this sheer injustice, they warned.

They said that when farmers harvested the wheat crops, the PPP government lowered the prices of their produce, and when they sold their crop at throwaway prices, traders sold them flour and rice at higher rates. Similarly, sugar cane crop was bought at cheap rate but sugar was sold at high prices, and cotton prices had also been reduced, they said.

They demanded stern action against the traders who bought harvests at low prices. The rice crop should be purchased at a minimum of Rs4,000 per 40 kg, they said.

The leaders said that lawlessness was at its peak in Nasirabad taluka and across Sindh, with police and administration becoming accomplices to criminals.

They demanded immediate arrest and punishment of those involved in theft and return of stolen goods to their rightful owners.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2024