Rally demands ouster of illegal immigrants

Sindhi nationalists say foreigners burden on province's resources

HYDERABAD:

Thousands of supporters of Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz marched for around six kilometres in Hyderabad on Sunday in a rally calling for extradition of illegal immigrants specially Afghans from Sindh.

The rally started from Naseem Nagar Chowk and culminated at Hyderabad Press Club where the party's chairman Sanan Qureshi and other leaders addressed the charged crowd. The rally disrupted the flow of traffic on Wadhu Wah, Thandi Sarak, Fatima Jinnah road and Saddar roads for couple of hours.

"Sindhis need to open there eyes, so that we can expel the illegal immigrants," said Qureshi, who told the rally that soon a long march and protest over the same issue will be organized in Karachi.

He argued that those immigrants have already occupied hundreds of thousands of acres of land, housing societies, employment, education and health facilities which were meant for the native population.

The JSQM's chairman reiterated that the province produced natural resources and that it is also blessed with the river, sea and mountains yet the local people suffer from abject poverty. Qureshi blamed immigrants for not only becoming a burden on the province's resources but for also becoming involved in criminal activities.

"The apex court has unequivocally ordered repatriation of the alien populations but the question is why the government is so reluctant to comply with that order?" he asked.

The party's vice chairman Amjad Khan Mahesar accused Pakistan Peoples Party's Sindh government for allowing illegal settlements of Afghans to flourish in Karachi. He warned that if the government continued to show its reluctance, the public might take the law in their hands to force Afghanis to leave Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the people taking part in a separate protest of Jeay Sindh Mahaz blocked the Hyderabad Bypass on Sunday evening which resulted in kilometers lines queues of the vehicles on either sides of the road. The protesters demanded expulsion of foreign settlers.