Prevailing order in Sindh will not last long: MQM-P

The prevailing dispensation of government in Sindh will not last much longer, declared Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui on Sunday.

“The arrow has left the bow and the lion is out of the cage. The creation of a new province in Sindh will decimate the dream of Sindhudesh in Pakistan,” he stated, addressing his party’s ‘Hyderabad March’ at Station Road.

The rally began at City Gate Hotel in Heerabad and came to its conclusion outside Lady Dufferin Hospital, where a stage had been set up for speeches by MQM-P leaders. Public participation, however, was lacking, in stark contrast to the party’s shows of power in the past.

Siddiqui, though, claimed a decisive moment in their political struggle had arrived as he invited party defectors back into the fold. “This is the boat of the Muhajirs. Those who sail with us will survive; those who don’t will not be safe,” he said, adding that unity among Muhajirs was vital as they strove for identity, respect, honour and the right to govern urban Sindh.

Looking back through history, he stated that migration from India had been purposeful, rather than accidental, adding that Sindhi Muslims were a minority in pre-Partition Sindh.

He further accused late Pakistan Peoples Party leaders Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto, as well as the PPP’s present leadership, of ruining Sindh over five decades of intermittent rule.

Meanwhile, MQM-P deputy convener Aamir Khan blamed the PPP for orchestrating the killings of Muhajirs during riots in Hyderabad in the 1980s.

“There is no difference between the PPP and Sindhi nationalist parties. They are all the enemies of Pakistan,” he insisted, further asking how the PPP could hold the MQM-P responsible for spreading ethnic hatred when the province’s ruling party had failed to appoint a single Muhajir as an administrator in local bodies. “Even postings in district administration or the police are not given to Muhajirs.”

Khan further argued that any party opposing the creation of a new province in Sindh was an enemy of Muhajirs.

MQM-P’s Khwaja Izharul Hassan, commenting on the party’s petition concerning the 2017 census in the Supreme Court, said the courts took suo motu notice of many issues, but the question of Karachi and Hyderabad’s population remained unheard. He added that if an honest census had been done, Karachi would have received a share of 84 seats in the Sindh Assembly.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2020.