‘The people responded to our call, the strike was a success’

Nationalists suspect garment factory fire was a ploy to make them fail.

KARACHI: The people of Sindh responded to our call. They supported our strike, said the convenor of the Sindh Bachao Committee and Sindh United Party Chief Jalal Mahmood Shah at a press conference at his residence on Thursday.

“There was a shutter down strike in most of the province. No trains were running and the roads were blocked.”

He added that this time the nationalists also had the support of Pir Pagara and the Pakistan Muslim League-Fuctional (PML-F). Some activists of the PML-F also held a hunger strike and sit-ins in Sanghar, Nara, Tando Adam, to show that they had rejected the new ordinance.

“The government and their coalition partner want to divide Sindh and run it like two provinces,” said Shah waving his hand in the air. “Through the metropolitan corporation, the government wants to hand over major cities like Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Sukkur to the coalition.”

The nationalist leader alleged that nearly 100 political workers and activists were arrested during protests in Hyderabad and others districts while a worker of the Awami Tehreek was also killed.

While speaking at the press conference, other nationalists said that the strike was a raging success. They asked the government to withdraw the ordinance without further delays, be prepared to face the consequences.

The nationalists announced that they would meet again on September 16 to form a plan of action and see what needs to be done.

Baldia Town fire

Shah suggested that the garment factory fire which claimed 258 lives could have been a ploy by the ‘enemies’ of Sindh to make sure that the strike was a failure. He demanded that a case be registered against the minister for industries, Rauf Siddique, and asked the government to investigate the case properly.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th, 2012.