MQM does not want to divide Sindh: Sattar

MQM-Pakistan convener urges Sindhis to join MQM against corruption and bad governance

HYDERABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) - Pakistan Convener Dr Farooq Sattar has urged the youth of Sindh to support his party to emancipate Sindh from corruption, bad governance and ethnic divide. He also denied that the division of Sindh was a goal of his party.

"I am aware of the sentiments of the youth in Sindh. I want them to join us so that we can together put to rest the controversy of dividing Sindh forever," Dr Sattar asserted at a press conference in the Akbari Ground in Latifabad, Hyderabad, on Sunday. "I want your support to silence the voices [calling] for a new province."

He urged Sindhi youngsters and students to understand how a divide was fomented between the people of urban and rural Sindh. The MQM-Pakistan leader argued that 1973 quota system sowed the seeds of division in Sindh. He claimed that the system generated a sense of deprivation among dwellers of the urban Sindh.



"Sindh's people ought to make a decision now. A cabal is ruling Sindh in the name of democracy." He also urged non-Muslim minorities in Sindh to throw their weight behind MQM-Pakistan.

The MQM-Pakistan convener was accompanied by Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar and other leaders including Kanwar Naveed Jamil, Amir Khan and Faisal Subzwari.

Since it parted ways with its London-based leadership, the MQM-Pakistan will be holding its first public meeting in Hyderabad on Decemeber 8. Dr Sattar claimed that the meeting will be the largest ever held in Hyderabad and will break record of all the past MQM's public meetings. "We will demonstrate unity of Muttahida's supporters."



He said the Mohajir people were not just being pushed against the wall but they were rather being entombed in the wall. "We have decided to live with dignity or to die," he said, adding that he hoped that the public meeting will prove to be decisive for the party's position in the next general elections. The MQM-Pakistan legislators won two out of three National Assembly's seats and four out of six Sindh Assembly seats in Hyderabad in the 2013 elections.

Dr Sattar claimed that Sindh's urban areas were in a dilapidated state and their resources were being plundered. The situation in rural Sindh was no different where the development funds were being embezzled, he added.

The MQM-Pakistan convener said he was concerned with the performance of the local government institutions as they did not deliver what people expected from them. He held nine-year long control of the Pakistan Peoples Party's appointed administrators responsible for the situation. "Now, we are being blamed for every service and development which wasn't done in the nine years before the provincial government took control of the local government," he said.



He also opposed the demolition of katchi abadis established on encroached land in the pretext of the Supreme Court order. Poor will be made homeless through such action, he decried. "I think they are going to commit a big sin by razing houses of the poor people. We consider this demolition a sin, a cruelty," he exclaimed.

The MQM-Pakistan convener expressed hope that the apex court would review its order with regard to katchi abadis on humanitarian grounds. Dr Sattar demanded the government provide alternative accommodation or compensation to the dwellers of katchi abadis before having their homes demolished.

The rich who made huge money by setting up their businesses on encroached land are escaping along with their wealth from the country, Dr Sattar claimed. He demanded that the officials who responsible for allowing illegal construction and occupation of government land be exposed.



Commenting on the recent fiasco of the alliance of his party with the Pak Sarzameen Party, Dr Sattar regretted that the opportunity stood lost. "There is no longer an alliance or a working relationship between the two parties. An alliance which robs us of our identity is not an alliance," he said.