Many injured as police use force to quell students’ protest against canals project – Pakistan

HYDERABAD: The Jamshoro police on Tuesday baton-charged and lobbed teargas shells to disperse the students who were protesting against Cholistan canal and other water channels being created to irrigation millions of acres of Panjab lands with Indus water.

Following the police action, the protesters blocked a section of the Indus Highway. The students belonged to the Jeay Sindh Students Federation (JSSF) and Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Bashir and Arisar factions, besides others nationalist entities.

The protest was also marked the struggle launched on March 4,1967 by students in Sindh.

Several hundred students, including girls, gathered at Zero Point of Sindh University where the police tried to prevent them from heading for the Indus Highway.

Refusing to budge from their stance, the students headed for the highway and gathered at the Sindhology entrance. Heavy contingents of police were deployed there in the lead of Jamshoro SSP Zafar Siddiqui and Kotri SP Shahnawaz Jokhio.

The police tried to disperse them by force, but the students retaliated. They pelted police with stones, damaging and smashing glass windows of two police mobiles. An unspecified number of policemen and students were injured reportedly.

The police then resorted to tear gas and baton charge, picking up around eight to 10 protesting students. They included Asghar, Nazeer Khoso, Mansoor Buledi, Wazir Leghari, Nasem Memon, Yasir Burfat and Yousuf Jakhrani.

Some of the injured students were identified as Zahid Keerio, Ameen Jamali and others. They were shifted to different police stations. The students staged a sit-in at the Indus Highway, raising slogans against the six-canal project on the Indus River.

Lawyers from Jamshoro rushed to the spot and spoke to Jamshoro SSP Zafar Siddique. Jamshoro District Bar Association leader Wajid Khaskheli demanded the SSP that the detained students should be released because they were holding protest for a cause – in protest against construction of six canals on the Indus River.

Warning that the police action would aggravate the situation, he said that it was a burning issue in Sindh as far as the construction of canals was concerned. He said the students had announced the protest against the project and the demo was mishandled.

He warned that if the canal project was executed, the entire Sindh would be destroyed. The SSP sought time to respond to his demand.

According to Jamshoro SSP Zafar Siddique, three policemen received injuries and two police mobiles were damaged. He said the students were asked to hold a peaceful protest, but they did not agree to it and headed for the Indus Highway.

Till filing of this report, the Indus Highway remained blocked. The detained students were being released by police and they were reaching the site of the protest.

Student leaders claimed that they had organised the protest to pay tribute to those who had participated in the March 4 struggle of 1967 launched by students in Sindh.

Observing that the six canals would undermine the existence of Sindh, they vowed that they would not let those canals built as it was the question of life and death for the people of Sindh.

High Court Bar Association (HCBA) Hyderabad president Ayaz Tunio also joined the protest to express solidarity with the protesters. He condemned the baton charge on the students by Jamshoro police. He demanded an action against the policemen who resorted to violence against the students. He said the HCBA had also organised a conference against the six canals.

Condemnations

Statements condemning the incident also started pouring in. Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party chairman Dr Qadir Magsi in a statement flayed the police action and said the canals’ construction was aimed at rendering Sindh barren.

He alleged that the PPP and PML-N in collusion with the establishment wanted to destroy Sindh completely by building those six canals. It was a conspiracy against 60 million people, he added.

Leaders of the Awami Tehreek, including Vasand Thari, Noor Ahmad Katiar, Sattar Rind and Abdul Qadir Ranto, condemned the police violence and arrests of the students who were holding a peaceful protest.

They accused the Sindh government of attempting to suppress legitimate struggle against canals through state brutality. They asserted that the PPP led government replicated the ‘anti-national’ tactics of ‘One Unit’ policy by unleashing violence against the students, effectively imposing a ‘One Unit system’ in Sindh.

In a statement on Tuesday, Sindh United Party president and Save Indus River Movement convener Syed Zain Shah also denounced the violence by police against the students.

He said the brutal use of force used against the peaceful protesters had exposed the true face of the PPP government. Describing the police action as naked dictatorship, he said those coercive measures could not browbeat the students.

Jeay Sindh Qaumi Party chairman Nawaz Khan Zaunr also condemned the baton charge, terming it sheer fascism. The Sindh government was resorting to violence to crush peaceful protests against the construction of the controversial canals in Sindh. The police action had proved that the PPP’s claims of opposing the canals were just lies and it was supporting Punjab and the federal government over that issue.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2025