Sukkur/Khairpur:
The Government began face to face conversations with the interested parties in Sindh on the issue of Indo Canals. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met with Prime Minister Murad Ali Shah, while a delegation of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) visited Protestant lawyers in Babarloi, Khairpur district.
According to Express News, Shah met Shehbaz in the home of the Prime Minister, where he expressed concern for the proposed construction of six new channels in the Indo River. The sources said that both parties shared their respective positions on the matter.
Early in the day, the president of PML-N Sindh, Bashir Memon, visited the Protestant lawyers who had blocked the National Highway in Babarloi, Khairpur, and held conversations with the president of the Karachi Bars Association (KBA), Aamir Nawaz Warraich, and other law leaders in an effort to end the sitting.
The last development is seen as a monitoring of the contacts initiated by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on political matters with several political parties to address generalized protests throughout Sindh. Memon and Rana Sana had communicated with the President of the Council of the Sindh Bar Association, Sarfaraz Metlo by phone, offering to start the dialogue. Rana Sanaullah also spoke with Senior Minister of Sindh, Sharjeel Memon and several leaders of the Nationalist Party.
According to the sources, the negotiations between the Protestant lawyers and the PML-N delegation concluded in Sukkur. The lawyers filed four demands to the representatives of the federal government, being the cancellation of the project of the channel the main priority.
Other demands included concerns about corporate agriculture, the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Law (PECA) and the 26th Constitutional amendment. The PML-N delegation invited lawyers to meet with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The lawyer accepted the offer and a delegation of 14 members would meet Shehbaz, he agreed. “Our key demand is the issuance of a notification to discard the channel project. Our sitting will continue until that happens. It would be ideal if the prime minister comes to Sukkur for conversations,” Warraich said.
Memon declared that they had received the list of four points from the lawyers, who would appear at the prime minister. “The next meeting will be held directly between lawyers and prime minister, where all matters will be resolved,” he said, expressing hope for a positive result.
Meanwhile, PML’s functional leader Sardar Abdul Rahim told journalists in Ranipur that Memon visited the protest site with a message from the leadership of his party. “The legal fraternity clearly responded: cancel the channel project, issue the notification and then we will talk,” he said.
