MULTAN, Dec 16: Royalty of cotton, wheat, electricity, gas, oil and minerals produced in the Seraiki areas should be spent on the development of the area.

This was demanded by Taj Muhammad Langah, the president of the Pakistan Seraiki Party, while addressing a press conference here on Tuesday on the conclusion of a three-day “International Seraiki Conference.”

Briefing on the conference, he said on the first day a seminar on the rights of Seraiki people was held, on the second day an open session was organized, which was addressed by political leaders and the intellectuals of the area.

The concluding day was marked as “Sultan Husain Langah Seminar” to throw light on the administrative autonomy of the Multan province during various periods of the history.

He said the conference adopted various resolutions, including complete restoration of the 1973 Constitution, demarcation of the Seraiki province as the fifth federating unit of the country, introduction of Seraiki language as a medium of instruction from primary to higher education level, construction of Kalabagh Dam, completion of the greater Thal Canal, a bridge over the River Indus between Kot Mittan and Chacharra, remodelling of Katchi canal in order to irrigate lands of Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur.

He said the conference further demanded that only the Seraiki people had right over the vacant government lands in their area, therefore the lands should be allotted to them, besides all the previous allotments to the non-Seraiki settlers should be cancelled forthwith.

The PSP chief said the conference expressed concern over the growing incidence of human rights violations in Seraiki area and demanded that the honour killing be treated as “intentional murder.”

Rejecting the last population census, he said, the conference had demanded a new census and jobs for the Seraiki youth in federal and provincial departments according to the proportion of their population.

Veteran Seraiki leaders — Mansoor Karim Siyal and Afzal Masood — were also present on the occasion.