Nationalists denounce bid to divide Sindh

Call committee on formation of new provinces 'a conspiracy' against province

HYDERABAD:

The Jeay Sindh Mahaz leader Riaz Chandio said on Sunday that the Sindhi nationalists consider the committee formed by the federal government for creating new provinces as a conspiracy to divide Sindh.

He said this at a meeting in Hyderabad on Sunday attended by Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party Chairman Dr Qadir Magsi, Qaumi Awami Tehreek's president Ayaz Palijo, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Party's leader Nawaz Zaunr and writers and intellectuals.

He blamed Pakistan Peoples Party's co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for being hands-in glove with the conspirators. "The ruling party in Sindh has been plundering the province for the last 14 years with the blessings of the establishment," he alleged, adding that the party and its leadership have also been spared from the accountability process.

Chandio said for the last four decades. The government has opened the doors of Sindh to illegal Afghan immigrants who have, over the time, occupied the trade sector in the province. He added that the illegal immigrants are not only being issued national identity cards, but they are also getting government jobs as the native people remain deprived of employment.

"Whenever the bill for recognising the provincial languages as the national languages is tabled in the parliament, a perceived threat to national unity is always cited for bulldozing it," he lamented. Chandio said all the civilian and military-led governments have tried to carve out new provinces based on divisions in Sindh and Balochistan.

He said the nationalist leaders are deliberating on a joint strategy to fight against the conspiracy to divide the motherland. The meeting passed resolutions declaring that a protest movement would be launched against the committee, headed by the PPP, working over the new provinces. They demanded immediate expulsion of Afghanis and other illegal immigrants, especially those living in Karachi and other parts of Sindh.

The meeting blamed the Sindh government for the rain and flood-triggered devastation in the province, saying that the government deliberately allowed the disaster to amplify and affect a far more significant number of the people who could have been saved. The resolution called for the registration of a criminal case against the Sindh government for flooding many parts of the province. The meeting lamented the role of FIRs against the students protesting against various departments and educational institutions of the government for their rights.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2022.