18 February 2005	Friday	08 Muharram 1426

ISLAMABAD, Feb 17: A People's Party Parliamentarians MPA from Sindh, Humaira Alwani, on Thursday issued a white paper on the 'poor' performance of the provincial government during the past two years.

Speaking at a news conference at the party's media centre, she said that according to a report, 75 per cent population of interior Sindh was living below the poverty line.

She said that on the one hand incidents of theft, robbery and kidnapping for ransom had increased manifold in the province, on the other 7,000 police officials had been posted to perform the VVIP duty.

She pointed out that even judges were not safe in the province. She claimed that the judges, who were kidnapped in Shikarpur some months back, had been released after payment of heavy ransom.

Ms Alwani said that out of a total 2,906 cases of kidnapping in the country, 982 were reported in Sindh. Out of 1,100 police torture cases throughout Pakistan, 405 took place in Sindh.

She said that out of 1,349 karo-kari cases in Pakistan, 632 were reported in Sindh and added that despite a ban imposed by the Sindh High Court on jirgas, hundreds of jirgas were held there.

A jirga was also held at the Chief Minister's House, she said. The MPA said that out of 4,141 cases of suicide and attempted suicide in the country, 2,041 were reported in Sindh.

She said that Wali Mohammad Rahimoon, a gold-media list engineer, was being victimized only because he wanted to contest elections against the chief minister. She alleged that Mr Rahimoon was detained at the CIA centre in Karachi and said four cases had been registered against him, inclu-ding a robbery at a petrol pump.

She criticized the privatization of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation and said that 19,000 employees would be affected because of the sell-off. She said the KESC had assets worth Rs82 billion, but it had been sold for Rs16 billion only.

She said the police had arrested two journalists under the Official Secret Act, 1923, for publishing a letter written by the director of the Crises Management Cell to the chief secretary about some complaints against the MQM, a partner in the ruling coalition.