Sindh leaders denounce water release into Jalalpur and link canals

LARKANA: Political and nationalist leaders in Sindh, along with protesters in Larkana district, sharply criticised the release of water into the Jalalpur, Taunsa-Panjnad Link and Chashma-Jhelum Link canals on Thursday, calling the move illegal, unconstitutional and damaging to Sindh’s water share.

In a statement, Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro demanded strict enforcement of water accords and said Sindh was being deprived of its due allocation. He described the release of water into the Jalalpur, Taunsa-Panjnad Link and Chashma-Jhelum Link canals as a violation of the 1991 Water Apportionment Accord and said the diversions challenged the constitutional authority of the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

Khuhro said Sindh’s allocation was being cut to supply the Taunsa-Panjnad and Chashma-Jhelum link flood canals, leaving the province with acute shortages. He also criticised the Indus River System Authority and the federal government, saying Irsa had failed to ensure transparent distribution. He announced province-wide protests for Friday and urged the immediate convening of a CCI meeting.

Referring to regional water concerns, Khuhro said India was acting unilaterally to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty while Sindh’s own share was being reduced to feed flood canals. In his remarks, he maintained that Sindh, as the lower riparian province, had priority rights under international law. He further said that the release of water into the Jalalpur Canal in the name of testing, before a pending CCI decision, breached constitutional procedure.

Khuhro, who said he had served as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, recalled that the Jalalpur project had been made conditional on CCI approval and that the council had deferred a decision on it. Citing Article 154(3) of the Constitution, which requires quarterly CCI meetings, he criticised the federal government for not convening sessions and warned that protests could intensify if the issue was not addressed.

Speaking at an event of the Malir Bar Association, Sindh United Party president Syed Zain Shah also opposed the Jalalpur Canal project, describing it as a plan to divert Indus water to irrigate land in Punjab at Sindh’s expense. He said the people of Sindh would not remain silent over what he called the plunder of the province’s water, land, resources and constitutional rights.

Shah said Sindh’s water was being blocked, new canals were being built, land was being acquired for corporate farming and resources were being taken over by federal and non-local interests. He said reduced flows at Kotri Barrage were harming farmers and damaging the Indus Delta, while seawater intrusion was swallowing millions of acres. He added that decisions on Sindh’s water would not be made from closed rooms in Islamabad.

Protest in Nasirabad

In Taluka Nasirabad of Qambar-Shahdadkot district, Awami Tehreek staged a protest rally for the second straight day against what it called Punjab’s canal schemes, corporate farming and police violence against sit-in participants at Babarloi. Farmers, growers and party workers marched from Comrade Riaz Ahmed Chowk to the Arthur Branch irrigation channel under the leadership of Comrade Muhammad Rafi Laghari, Hamid Inqalabi, Ghulam Shabbir Budh, Muhammad Hashim Jatoi and Suraj Laghari.

Addressing the gathering, protest leaders alleged that efforts were under way to weaken Sindh by diverting the Indus River and drying up the province, alongside land acquisition for corporate farming. They accused the Punjab government and the PPP of working together to block Sindh’s water and create artificial shortages that were hurting growers, agriculture and the wider economy.

The demonstrators also criticised rising fuel prices, inflation and what they described as an increase in violent crime under PPP policies. They demanded the immediate closure of the Jalalpur, Taunsa-Panjnad Link and Chashma-Jhelum Link canals, restoration of full water rights under the 1945 Water Accord, a halt to dam construction including the Bhasha Dam, the release of activists arrested at Babarloi and action against police officials held responsible.