GDA leader urges SC to address islands issue

Warns resistance by Sindh's people will grow if PIDA Ordinance is not withdrawn

HYDERABAD:

The Supreme Court should play its role in addressing the controversy over the Pakistan Islands Development Authority (PIDA) Ordinance, declared Qaumi Awami Tehreek (QAT) president Ayaz Latif Palijo, who is leading a five-day march protesting the issue from Kandhkot to Karachi.

On the third day of the march on Friday, Palijo, who is also the general secretary of the ruling coalition's Grand Democratic Alliance, warned that resistance by Sindh's people would grow stronger by the day if the ordinance was not withdrawn.

"Sindh owns the islands in its territorial limits and the same is the case with Balochistan," he underlined while talking to the media.

Palijo alleged that the provincial government was also "selling off Karoonjhar Mountains in Tharparkar for granite exploitation."

"But we want to tell the government that Karoonjhar Mountains are the beauty of Sindh and we won't allow anyone to destroy [them]," he said. The Sindh government has publicly denied that the mountains are being handed over to a company for the said purpose.

Criticising the federal government's decision to form the Karachi committee to supervise the city's development, Palijo cautioned Prime Minister Imran Khan against becoming a "loathsome figure" in the eyes of Sindh's people. "He shouldn't do things which make them consider him an enemy.

Appreciating that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) passed a resolution in the Sindh Assembly against the PIDA Ordinance, he demanded that the provincial assembly passed similar resolutions against all federal moves "harming Sindh's rights."

He also asked Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Maryam Nawaz to clearly express her views on the rights of Sindh and Balochistan. "Other leaders of the Pakistan Democratic Movement, like Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Akhtar Mengal, have clearly opposed moves infringing on the rights of Sindh and Balochistan."

He invited the PPP to become part of a collaborative struggle with other parties in the province fighting for the rights of Sindh and expressed the hope that hundreds of thousands of people would join the march in Karachi on November 8.