KARACHI, Jan 8: The Provincial president of the Pakistan Peoples Party and former chief minister of Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, on Saturday accused the government of conspiring to make the ethnic divide more menacing by planning to fragment Hyderabad , the second biggest city of the province, on the lines of Larkana and other districts.

Addressing a news conference at his residence, Mr Shah alleged, "Such a division will be guided by ethnicity and will be very bad for the harmony and understanding between different communities of the province."

Perhaps, he claimed, that the government had not learnt lessons from the 1987 language riots, which were caused by the past regime's deliberate policy of divide and rule.

Hyderabad has 102 union councils, 61 in rural areas and 41 in urban areas. It is a district where Urdu- and Sindhi-speaking people have lived together for the past many decades.

Mr Shah was of the view that fragmentation of Hyderabad would in effect mean the division of Sindh.

He advised the government to learn from the protest launched by the people in Kandkot where many protestors were gunned down by the police. He claimed that similar protests were also continuing in Jacobabad, Dadu and elsewhere.

Mr Shah said if one accepted the government's rationale for creating new entities by dividing the old ones, then why was Karachi, which had several times a bigger population, not fragmented.

"If Karachi, which has over 12 million people, can be given the status of a city district government by merging five districts, why can't Hyderabad be given the same status," he asked.

He slammed the government for neglecting the civic infrastructure in Hyderabad, also accusing it of bartering Sindh's claims on the issue of water and the NFC award.

He also accused the government of running away from debating the question in the provincial assembly and ignoring the opposition's resolutions and adjournment motions.

Mr Shah said the arbitrary decision taken by the government would be harmful as new districts in Sindh were created without discussing the matter in the Sindh Assembly.

One of the two deputy leaders of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Makhdoom Jameeluzzaman, claimed that the provincial government's act was in fact a conspiracy against Gen Pervez Musharraf's devolution plan and the system of governance.

Flanked by Prof N.D. Khan, provincial information secretary Waqar Mehdi and city chief of the PPP, Rashid Rabbani, and Makhdoom Jameel Uz Zaman said the PPP was already in the court with regard to the division of Dadu, and Larkana districts.

Prof N.D. Khan said the division was politically motivated to harm the PPP and alleged that it was part of pre-election rigging.

PPP sources allege that the bifurcation of Hyderabad had been demanded by some leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Accordingly, Hyderabad, comprising three talukas of Hyderabad city, Latifabad and Qasimabad would give a substantial edge to the MQM.