KARACHI: Sindhi nationalist and religious parties are observing a province-wide strike against the government’s decision to restore the Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) 2001.
The provincial government’s coalition partners, the Awami National Party (ANP) and National Peoples Party (NPP), are backing it as they argue that the decision to bring back the SLGO was an anti-Sindh move. The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Sunni Tehreek and Balochistan National Party (Awami) are also taking part.
Express 24/7 correspondent Shaheryar Mirza reported that initially traffic was low and shops remained closed in some areas of the city. Areas where the protesting parties have a strong presence remain completely shut down.
The strike was also observed in Kandhkot, Matyari, Sanghar, Khiarpur and Tando Allah Yar. While a complete shutter down strike was observed in Badin and Sukkur where rallies were also taken out.
However, the parties participating in the strike have distanced themselves from incidents of violence reported from parts of Karachi and Hyderabad.
Transporters have decided to stay off the roads to avoid any damage to their vehicles. President of the Karachi Transport Union, Irshad Bukhari said the union will not get involved in any political activity and that buses will be blocked on routes where protests have been planned.
A total of 15 vehicles including a police van and an oil tanker have been set on fire in Karachi and Hyderabad.
President of the Inter-City Air Conditioned Coach Association, Malik Riaz said their coaches will continue to operate on their regular routes.
A police van was set ablaze and unidentified men opened indiscriminate fire at the Naseem Nagar Bypass in Hyderabad.
Eight killed in Karachi
Eight people have been killed in target and other violence across Karachi in a new wave that started late on Friday night.
Two people were killed and another five injured when rival groups clashed in the Nazimabad area of Karachi.
Police found two bodies in car without a number plate in Pak Colony.
Three people were killed in a shooting incident in Nazimabad-2 area. The relatives of the victims staged a protest as police used batons to disperse them.
A hand-grenade attack on a shop in the same area injured two people.
Firing was reported in other areas of the city including Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block 8, 16 and 19, and also at Hassan Square and Essa Nagar. No casualties were reported.
COMMENTS (19)
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Actually we are so HABITUAL to live in "FEUDAL SYSTEM" the gift of GORAS which they give us 64 yrs ago.And now we cannot live in "AWAMI" system.
@Minsif Ali - Your comments are sadly racists and potray limited thinking. You need to get out of the racists mindset and look forward towards progress and democractic success. Karachi and Hyderabad with their Local governance will set a great example of democractic success otherwise you might as well forget democracy and welcome the Military rule, since Military rule is better and safer than narrow minded Mob Rule who is illiterate and does not understand the benefits of Local governance as part of democratic process. The public needs education to open up their minds towards democratic rule otherwise they do not deserve democracy and will continue to destroy their country due to lack of rational thinking.
Instead of being happy & supportive of the move, the so called "democratic" political parties longing for a dictatorial system as usual results in bloodshed & loss of innocent lives. Shame on politicians & a bigger shame on us the silent spectators!
These people reveal their ignorance and selfishness by their actions. Their actions are harmful to their own interests; yet too shortsighted to even understand that.! @Munsif Ali, you make a good point about Hyderabad. It's structure needs to be changed to reflect Karachi structure. In fact all cities can have that structure. Would help the sad sack Sindhi cities that one would be ashamed to take foreign visitors to see. But, I should point out that the LG system reflects a modern governance system for urbanizing areas. It is best able to deal with the challenges and that is why this type of system is implemented in many countries and regions. South Asia was an early beneficiary;but, not it lags behind other leading appliers. For rural areas, it needs to be modified, since there are no ag taxes! Same goes for India's panchayat system, which rural system is modern version of.The original form of rural system is from a country which had ag taxes. This no ag tax phenomenon is peculiar to South Asia, which leaves rural system with paucity of tax base. Now if rural areas were industrial hubs, as some Chinese villages are they would not be so handicapped!
I just want to clarify that Munsif Ali's comment is not representative of Sindhi's like me at all. All this talk of indigenous people is absurd, and divisive. It encourages hatred and incites violence. The very fact that this person should cite the situation of stranded Bihari's (who incidentally were Pakistani's) being slaughtered in East Pakistan by "indigenous" Bengalis as the fate of people who are not "indigenous sindhi" is truly disgusting. And where will such ridiculous warnings lead? How far back would he like to go? Should we start with indigenous Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs? Does this person endorse the brainless, mob mentality inter- communal bloodshed that region has suffered again and again, during and after partition?
This strike proves one thing: paralysing Karachi is not monopoly of one political party.
The administration is pretty helpless.
This successful protest and shut down whole Sindh is a refrendum against PPP-MQM nexus to harm Sindh's integrity.MQM is completely exposed and their Pro-Sindh rhetoric has proved baseless.SLGO 2001 has only benefit for MQM?Over 20 million people have one city district govt in Karachi and while for 2 million people in Hyderabad,there are made four districts..reason is to give MQM authority over those areas and want to snatch these big cities of Sindh from indigenous people.What a price is SIndh being paid for their welcoming nature and immigrants always come and settle here and they take Sindh's sufi and peaceful philosphy as weakness and they want to control Karachi and Hyderabad by pushing Sindhis away and out from it.Sindh is historical land and those who betray Sindh cause,their place is not in Sindh but out of Sindh.Just a hint,remember the curious case of Beharis in Bengladesh who fought against local people.
The poor people of Karachi only want local voice and rights through the LG system but the land mafia,s would not let go of the terror powers and are muffling the voice of the locals by their intimidating terror acts and paid hooligans and gangsters. Without the LG system democracy will fail In Karachi, the heart of Pakistan. The law of the jungle must leave in order for democracy to exist at all. These strikers are are well paid and are lethal for Pakistan . . . . they intimidate and kill innocent people. Shame on them for robbing the peace of Karachi !!!!!!!!!!!!!
This system of government and the people at the helm of affairs during the three years, with their confused mind, confused ideas and contrdictory actions and self-defeating (self-deceiting) in fact, irresponsible attitude in all things arround has really made us the most confsed nation of the whole world. People abroad, believe it, simply laugh us away as we do things in confused style and manner in which, our one act cuts the next stepwe take and all this we do instantly and simultaneously. Now the artificial issues and demands for new provinces or none at all, or local bodies Act of this or that type or its partial enforcement in two big cities of Sindh and the rest of the province to continue with old system, yes a system which was actually not properly understood by its own shemers/initiators as they themselves had been ignorant of the hard cold (bitter) ground realities in which they had to enforce their new local system( just a change for thr sake of change).We pretend to be democrats, but never yes, we have, never ,never, ever had a fairly and honestly held elections in the country. Now with the passage of each day, our ruling people, manifest their confusion writ large on their face and expressing themselves in haieen, baein, shain( confued expression) which leads you to no where. And if someone asks this scribe to give his personal opinion, and suggest as how to get rid of such an unacceptable confusion, I will at once suggest that the originally planned Basic Democracy system of Ayub Khan be restored in the country at once,of course minus the political use of BD members for the the election of MNAs/MPAs/ or to use it as electoral college for the election of the president of Pakistan. This political use of local members ended their interest in local affairs and the Bd members became a new class of bribed elite to elect those in the highest seats of authority.Thus a very wel-thought out loacl bodies scheme was renered useless and un-workable to serve the people who elect them for local purpose. In view of all these observations we must become a mature nation by learning from our own past experience. Believe it that history is a great teacher.Let us become a good student of history, history of our own people and our own region and surroundings. We can learn a lot from countries like China, Turkey,Iran and if one does not mind, yes! from India, too.
14th august gift to quaid azam.
JJ, you ask who`s responsible? The responsibility is with the whole system. The Political Parties, Army & Religious Parties who brought us nothing but death & destruction.
There
s hope, in the form of HuT, wholl implement the true for islam as mentioned in Quran & Hadith. The words "Republic" & "Pakistan" will be out and we become one & will be called "Islamic Caliphate" with one Islamic Currency. There`ll be peace, Inshallah.So where are the people on ET commentators, now why can't you blame this to MQM again,as this happens in Karachi. These are same culprit including ANP, Sunni threek in Karachi and JASQAM in interior sindh who are behind the mess in Karachi. I hope this is the time people take real face of these people and stop attacking people's of Karachi!
I just happened to call Mr. Asad Ullah Bhutto of Jamat-e-Islami (JI) & he categorically told me that JI is not participating in the strike but "is only supporting the constitutional right of the parties who are on strike toay. Moreover, the official statement of JI regarding the LG System will be released on 17th August after the meeting of JI leadership." What should I understand from this??
"President of the Inter-City Air Conditioned Coach Association"...hmmm.. so i guess inter city non air conditioned coaches would still be on the road
The Qaum Parast’s are agitating due to one simple reason that they oppose the system which Haq Parast’s want to be imposed in Sindh.
Commissionrate system supports the feudal system in Pakistan whereas Local Government system is meant for breaking the feudal system from the country.
Qaum Parast’s should think twice.
The feudal’s are in majority whereas Qaum Parast’s and Haq Parast’s are in majority.
If Qaum Parast’s and Haq Parast’s will join the hands together, both of them can beat the feudal system first from the Sindh and then from the entire country.
Can i ask that who are responsible to kill 5 innocent people in overnight violence across Karachi who are responsible for that ? are these people are responsible to restore the Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) 2001.?
Can i ask from The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Sunni Tehreek and Balochistan National Party (Awami) leaders thatt the 05 INOSENT people who are killed are they restore the Local Government Ordinance (SLGO) 2001?then why they killed? who took responsiblity of their killing?