Large-scale protests broke out in the Pakistani port city of Gwadar, protesting unnecessary checkpoints, severe water and electricity shortages, and threats to livelihoods from illegal fishing. This is the country’s contribution to China’s multi-billion-dollar “Belt and Road” project. Part of the growing opposition.
Protests organized by workers from political parties, civil rights activists, fishermen, and related citizens have continued for a week in Y Chowk on Gwadar Port Road, a coastal town in Balochistan province in southwestern Pakistan.
The Jang newspaper reported on Sunday that protesters demanded the abolition of unnecessary security checkpoints, the provision of drinking water and electricity, the expulsion of large trawlers from the Makran coast, and the opening of the border with Iran from Bangjgur to Gwadar.
The head of the “Gwadar Rights” rally, Mullana Hidayat Ur Rahman, stated that the protests will continue until their demands are met and claimed that the government is addressing the locals living in the area. There is no sincerity in terms of the question. Rahman strongly criticized the government for failing to solve the basic problems of the Gwadar people in the past.
“We demand the rights of Gwadar. These rights have been usurped by the rulers and the people have even been deprived of their basic needs. Fishermen cannot make a living because large trawlers are allowed to fish off the coast of Markland,” he said at a public meeting last month. Say.
Rahman said that despite the construction of the Gwadar deep sea port, people in the city are still unemployed and the government has done nothing about it.
“Tu’s sons were stopped at the checkpoint and asked about their whereabouts to be an insult to them,” he was quoted as saying by the “Forum Express”. Part of the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Project (CPEC), the flagship project of China’s multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
India has protested to China over the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor passing through Pakistan’s occupied Kashmir (PoK). This huge infrastructure project connects China’s Xinjiang Province with Gwadar Port in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province.
Gwadar Port has long been portrayed as the crown jewel of CPEC, but in the process, the city has become the embodiment of a safe country.
The first task of the authorities is to ensure the port and its ancillary interests; for the people living in the area, their welfare is irrelevant. According to a report from The Dawn on Friday, the port is far from a harbinger of economic prosperity. The opposite happened.
News Source : Hindustan Times
