KARACHI, Nov 5: Speakers at a conference here on Tuesday unanimously demanded that the Lyari Expressway be built according to the original plan and mass-scale demolition of settlements be stopped immediately.

They were speaking at an All-Parties Conference organized by the Action Committee for Civic Problems at Hussain Auliya Village against the construction of Lyari Expressway.

Leaders of various political parties spoke at the conference and criticized the government for constructing the Lyari Expressway under a revised plan due to which a large number of houses, etc would have to be demolished.

Some of the speakers, recently elected to the parliament, said they would raise the issue at all levels, including provincial and National assemblies, and support the cause of the poor settlers regardless of the fact to which political parties they belonged.

The committee chief alleged that the Lyari Expressway had been planned to grab the expensive land which would later be given to favourites as political bribe.

Abdul Khaliq Baloch, Abdul Sattar Ansari, Mohammed Husain Mehnati, Maulana Umer Sadiq, Hafiz Naeem, Muzaffar Shujra, Abdullah Murad, Yusuf Mustikhan, Amin Khattak and others also spoke.