Karachi / Hyderabad:
The speakers of a seminar highlighted the growing ecological and socio-economic challenges posed by the degradation of the industrial river.
The seminar, entitled “Industrie River: The Lifeline of Sindh under threat”, was organized by the National Federation of the Commercial Union Pakistan (NTUF) and the organization of youth, alternative, in Karachi Press Club on Friday. He coincided with the 28th “International Action Day for Rivers”.
The main intellectuals, public representatives and environmental activists, spoke during the seminar where they stressed the importance of protecting the Indus river, which is vital for the survival of the Sindh and its people.
The secretary general of the NTUF, Nasir Mansoor
He also pointed out that the coastal areas of Pakistan, which formerly house the seventh largest forests in the world mangroves, have been devastated, and the Delta of the Indus, the fifth world delta, is now in danger. Zehra Khan, secretary general of the Federation of Workers of Women at Home, described the construction of the project of the six channels as a “suicidal act” which would exacerbate the vulnerability of the region to climate change.
The Sajjad Zaheer Academic expressed its solidarity with the Sindh resistance against the six -channel project and other infrastructure projects which harm the regional ecology. Zaheer recalled the Historical Sindh struggles against the Kalabagh dam.
Tabassum Khoso of the IMDAD Foundation highlighted the growing environmental threat to coastal areas like Thista and Sajawal.
Fisherfolk Forum
At International Rivers Day, on March 14, a large number of fishermen and men, as well as political activists and human rights participated in the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum rally against Cholistan and other channels on the Industry River. The request for the rally was not channels, no dams and no cuts on the Industry river.
The demonstration started at Ibrahim Hyderi and ended in Mal Jetty. The central secretary general of Pakistan Fisherfolk Saeed Baloch, said that the struggle of Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum against the construction of six channels on the Indus River will continue.
Rallies head for Kotri dam
The Kotri dam, the latest engineering structure on the Industry river before meeting the Oman Sea, remained flooded on Friday, although people seemed in arms to defend what they firmly believed to be their right on the river.
The nationalist political parties, divergent groups of citizens and farmers organized distinct rallies of Hyderabad and Jamshoro, the dam being their point of convergence.
Friday, demonstrations and gatherings were also withdrawn throughout the province with an unusually broader participation of the people who marked the International Action Day for Rivers by calling for the end of the project to build six other channels on the river. People have doubled rose petals on the river, also paying tribute.
“For more than 150 years, the Punjab leading elite has been operating Sindh water by building canals and dams,” said alleged lawyer Vasand Thari, president of Awami Tehreek, who led more than two kilometers on Friday.
Jeay Sindh Mahaz president Riaz Ali Chandio, who led the rally of his party to the dam, said that the people of the Sindh did not allow feudal lords seated in the provincial government to steal their right over the river. The president of the Sindh Hari Committee, Samar Hyder Jatoi, argued that the speech of President Zardari in which he rejected the canals also approved the assertion of the Sindh’s Protestly people that they provided for desertification in the province if the canals are fed in the river water.
