Sindhi Nationalists Launch Larkana-to-Karachi March Against Plan to Divide the Province

Activists from a coalition of Sindhi nationalist parties began a march from Larkana toward Karachi on Thursday, opposing federal proposals to divide Sindh, after police barricades briefly halted several of the convoys bringing supporters to the starting point, according to Dawn.

The march was organised by the Jeay Sindh Rahbar Committee, a coalition of four Sindhi nationalist groups, and left Lahori Mohalla near the Rice Canal regulator in Larkana. It was led by Riaz Ali Chandio, chairman of Jeay Sindh Mahaz-Riaz, along with Dr Niaz Kalani, Nawaz Khan Zaur and Shabbir Jamali. The march ended its first day with a public meeting at Jinnah Bagh Chowk in Larkana; the coalition's leaders said they expect hundreds of thousands of supporters at a rally in Karachi on November 22.

What the coalition is protesting

Two separate proposals have drawn the nationalist coalition's opposition. Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) renewed its long-standing campaign for a new province carved from Sindh in July 2026, with federal minister and party leader Mustafa Kamal telling reporters the party sought new provinces "on the basis of mother tongue" and would take the demand to the streets, framing it as an administrative rather than ethnic question, Dawn reported at the time. Separately, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has floated creating smaller administrative units within existing provinces, a proposal Jeay Sindh Mahaz chairman Chandio and Qaumi Awami Tehreek president Ayaz Latif Palijo have both publicly opposed. Chandio said in August, after the two leaders were issued notices by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, that "we will not accept the breaking of Sindh into pieces or the imposition of slavery and humiliation on its people," according to the Express Tribune.

Barricades and brief detentions in Larkana

Police deployed contingents in Larkana on Thursday and set up barricades at the Lahori Regulator, Dawn reported. Activists climbed over or removed the barricades to continue the march through parts of the city. Chandio said vehicles carrying supporters from Shikarpur, Qambar, Shahdadkot and Mirokhan were stopped en route, that Kalani's own convoy was halted, and that activists were also stopped at Khairpur Bridge. The coalition's leaders held a sit-in at Jinnah Bagh Chowk over what they called "police excesses," which ended after Larkana DSP Faraz Maitlo negotiated with them; Kalani said the sit-in was called off only once seven detained activists and several impounded vehicles were released.

Accusations aimed at the provincial government

Chandio also accused the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which governs Sindh, of complicity in what he called the "plunder" of the province's resources, and said the party had previously used force against people protesting a Sindh Assembly bill describing Sindh as the marchers' "mother" province. Kalani said Sindh's people would not accept the province's division "under any name" and warned that road and rail links to Punjab would be blocked if the plan went ahead. Jamali said the push to divide Sindh mirrored an effort to divide Punjab as well, while Zaur said the coalition opposed any move to hand Karachi or Sindh's coastal areas to the federal government. None of these claims about a parallel Punjab division plan has been independently confirmed by this desk.

Part of a wider pattern of centre-province friction

The march comes as a separate province, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, remains under governor's rule after President Asif Ali Zardari suspended its elected government on October 11 — a reminder that disputes over where provincial and federal authority begins and ends are playing out in more than one part of the country this month, even if the Sindh and KP cases have different causes.

What to watch

The coalition has set November 22 as the date for a mass rally in Karachi, the city at the centre of MQM-P's new-province demand. Whether the Sindh government moves to restrict the march as it continues toward Karachi, and whether federal officials respond directly to Thursday's events, will shape how the next five weeks unfold.

Build Better Pakistan's Politics Desk is following the march toward Karachi and will update this piece as it continues.