QAT rejects limited heritage status for Karoonjhar Mountains

Qomi Awami Tehreek (QAT) leader Ayaz Latif Palijo has rejected the Sindh government's decision to declare only 21,000 acres of Karoonjhar Mountains in Tharparkar as a protected heritage site.

"The mountain spreads to around 200,000 acres but Pakistan Peoples Party's provincial government has deceived the people by declaring only a small part of it as protected heritage," the left-oriented Sindhi nationalist party's leader said in a statement on Sunday.

The Sindh cabinet's meeting on September 14 sanctioned the heritage status on the order of the Sindh High Court.

The Hyderabad Circuit Bench had directed the government in October 2023 to give heritage status to the mountains and stop all types of excavations and mining. The SHC's Mirpurkhas Bench repeated the same order twice earlier this month while putting the chief secretary and Sindh culture secretary on contempt notice for September 16.

Palijo said Zardari-League had been allegedly plundering and putting to auction the resources of Sindh for the past 16 years. "The province's oil, gas, coal, coastal areas, mountains and port have been given to the central government and the Indus River has been allowed to become dry when it enters Sindh."

He said the people of Sindh will not allow PPP to trade even the heritage of the province for the sake of sustaining itself in power. Palijo demanded that the mountain in its entirety should be declared as protected heritage.