SHIKARPUR, April 21: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leader, Maulana Ghafoor Hyderi, has warned that a protest movement would be launched against President Gen Pervez Musharraf if he did not leave the post of the Chief of Army Staff by December 2004.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, he said that the National Security Council was another name of martial law as all powers would directly be in the hand of the president and parliament would be rendered ineffective.

Maulana Hyderi said the Wana operation was not in the interest of the country as it had been conducted at America's behest. He said the MMA would also oppose amendments in syllabus.

APPEAL: Former employees of the Port Qasim Authority have appealed for instatement of their services.

In a statement here on Wednesday, Ali Murad Jalalani, Deedar Soomro, Ali Akbar Ujjan, Nabi Bux Lashari, Essa Bhutto, Haleem Mahar, Rasheed Memon, Anees Shah, Alamdar Shah and Kaleem Wadho claimed that they were forcibly retired under the golden handshake scheme.

They said they were forced to go on retirement on the pretext of surplus workers while no approval was received from the ministry. They claimed the PQA was appointing new employees after forcibly them. They appealed to Federal Communication Minister Babar Ghouri that forcibly retired employees should be restored before making any fresh recruitments by him.