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DAM-L LS: 100 arrested in Pakistan anti-dam protest (fwd)
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Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 14:07:13 -0700 (PDT)
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subject: LS: 100 arrested in Pakistan anti-dam protest
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The News, July 27, 2000
Police disperse PONM rally in Sukkur
Palijo, 100 others held; over two dozen hurt
By Imtiaz Hussain and Ansar Naqvi
HYDERABAD: More than 100 workers and leaders of the component parties
of Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM) including Rasool Bux
Palijo were rounded up by Sukkur police on Tuesday in a bid to foil
PONM's scheduled rally against the proposed Kalabagh Dam and water
shortage in Sindh.
However, following a heart complaint, Palijo was shifted from the B
Section police station to Deewane Mushtaq Hospital, Sukkur, a little
after midnight. The Sukkur police blocked the roads linking Sukkur
with other cities and towns, but PONM supporters gathered at Pir
Chowk as police baton-charged them and used tear-gas shells to
disperse them. Due to extraordinary deployment of the police force,
Sukkur town was giving a look of a city put under curfew, which badly
affected the routine trade and commercial activities.
The anti-Kalabagh Dam rally was to be started at 2.00 pm from
Lab-e-Mehran, along the River Indus bank, but due to the sealing of
Khairpur bypass and Ghotki road by erecting barriers, the venue was
changed by the PONM's leaders. A group of political activists led by
PONM Sindh's convener Dr Qadir Magsi appeared at Pir Chowk at Barrage
road chanting anti-Kalabagh Dam slogans.
The heavy police force patrolling in trucks asked them to disperse,
but the crowd refused and continued chanting slogans against the
government for raising the Kalabagh Dam issue again and again, on
which police first baton-charged the activists and then fired
tear-gas shells to disperse them.
The angry crowd retaliated with hurling soft drink bottles and stones
on police personnel, after causing damage to a truck of soft drinks.
Police rounded up some two dozen activists from the scene and took
them to different police stations. The hide and seek between police
and PONM supporters continued for the rest of the day, as PONM's
allied parties' supporters appeared in city for taking out rallies.
Dr Qadir Magsi, who had managed to escape from the Pir Chowk, again
appeared at the Shikarpur road, near the police station where
policemen fired a number of teargas shells and also baton-charged the
crowd, forcing them to disperse in the narrow streets.
Awami Tehreek's chief Rasool Bux Palijo was the only leader, who
could reach the final venue of the rally "Ghanta Ghar" Chowk in a
Suzuki pick-up like ordinary passengers. As Palijo and his comrades
Vishnoomal, Hakeem Zangejo and others appeared at the scene, the
police force attacked them and hurled them into police mobile vans,
before Palijo could deliver his speech. Palijo, however, started
delivering anti-Kalabagh Dam speech from the hole of the police
mobile van, but policemen compelled him to sit in the van and shifted
him to B Section police station, where he was locked up.
Talking to a group of journalists from inside the lock-up, Palijo
termed the police act of baton-charge, tear-gassing and arrests as
barbarism and violation of human rights, as people of Sindh province
had every right to protest over "anti-Sindh Kalabagh Dam." He said
such tyrannies could not compel the people of Sindh to give up their
protest campaign because Kalabagh Dam is a matter of life and death
for them.
Following the arrest of the PONM leaders, Dr Qadir Magsi has gone
underground and could not be contacted again, amid rumours that the
police have also arrested him. During the daylong protest, more than
two dozen persons, including political activists, policemen,
journalists and photographers received injuries. Abdul Khaliq Junejo,
the head of the Jeay Sindh Mohaz told The News on phone from an
unidentified place in Sukkur that police had blocked all the roads,
linking Sukkur with Khairpur, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Rohri and other
cities.
He said as per the decision he is going to address a press conference
at the residence of his party leader Khan Mohammad Bhayo to announce
that PONM would observe a "black day" throughout Sindh province on
Thursday (July 27) as a mark of protest against Tuesday's police
action. Khaliq Junejo addressed a news conference, but before he
could end it, heavy police force raided that location and arrested
him, along with other leaders Moulana Azizullah Bohio and others and
they were shifted to an unknown place.
SSP Sukkur Sultan Khawaja told The News on phone from Sukkur that
police had picked up 65 persons, including Rasool Bux Palijo and
Vishnoomal for violating Section 144 CrPC. Sultan said PONM's call
could not get positive response in Sukkur, as the local people did
not pay any heed to the call for taking out rally against Kalabagh
Dam. He added police used light baton charge and tear-gas shells in
different parts of the city to disperse the protesters.
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