Basti Sheikhhan, Taunsa Barrage: PKRC Condemns State Terror and Aggression Against Indigenous Fishing Communities

Lahore: Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC) strongly and unequivocally condemns the ongoing illegal, coercive, and violent evictions carried out by the PERA Force & Punjab Police against the indigenous and traditional fishing community of Basti Sheikhhan, located near Taunsa Barrage. This violet dispossession represents a dangerous escalation of state repression against peasants, tenant farmers, fisherfolk, workers, and indigenous rural communities, carried out under the false pretexts of “law enforcement” and so-called “development".

Basti Sheikhhan is home to more than 1,500 families, with a total population exceeding 15,000 people. When the PERA Force and police attempted to forcefully evict them from their homes and land, the community responded with united and peaceful resistance, firmly defending their constitutional, human, and historical rights. The residents also held a press conference at the Kot Addu Press Club, where they strongly condemned the Punjab government’s illegal dispossession campaign and reaffirmed their collective determination to protect their homes and settlement.

The residents of Basti Sheikhhan have unanimously declared that they will defend their homes and community through courts and constitutional forums. The community asserts that Basti Sheikhhan has existed since 1958, when the Taunsa Barrage was constructed, and that they are an ancient fishing community of the Indus River. This settlement is not merely a place of residence but a living symbol of their ancestors, history, identity, and their only home, which they categorically refuse to abandon under any circumstances.

PKRC views this incident not as an isolated or accidental event, but as part of a systematic and organized project of state land grabbing, displacement, and repression unfolding across Punjab and the country at large. The recent state violence against tenant farmers in Arifwala, ongoing attacks on small food producers, peasants, sharecroppers, women, and now the targeting of fishing communities clearly expose a single political agenda: the forcibly transfer of territories, land, water, and natural resources from Peasants & working people to corporate and elite interests, using state force as an instrument of dispossession.

At this critical moment, the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee declares its complete and unconditional solidarity with Sindhu Bachao Tarla, a community-based organization actively campaigning for the rights of fishing and Adivasi (indigenous) communities along the Indus River. Sindhu Bachao Tarla has been at the forefront of struggles to defend land, water, livelihoods, identity, and dignity of riverine communities. PKRC firmly believes that communities living along the Indus are not illegal settlers, but historical custodians of the river, its ecology, civilization, and collective survival. Any form of state aggression against them is entirely unacceptable.

The Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee demands that:

- All land grabbing, displacement, and harassment operations in Basti Sheikhhan be immediately halted
- The PERA Force and Punjab Police be withdrawn from the settlement without delay
- Full legal protection be ensured for the historical, residential, and livelihood rights of the fishing community
- All retaliatory actions against indigenous fishing communities, peasants & small food producer's be immediately stopped.
- Transparent and strict legal action be taken against officials involved in these illegal and violent acts

PKRC makes it clear that if the state continues its policy of repression, dispossession, and violence against peasants, Fisherfolk, tenant farmers, and indigenous communities, a nationwide, organized, united, and decisive protest movement will be launched. Land, water, and food are not commodities for corporate profit or tools of state power—they belong to those who produce, protect, and sustain them: fishers, small farmers, workers, and indigenous communities.

Issued by:
Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee

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