April 6, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 7, 1427

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LARKANA, April 5: A sense of deprivation has forced people of the Seraiki belt to launch a movement for a separate province in Punjab. Pakistan People’s Party-Parliamentarians vice-chairman Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi said this while talking to journalists at a reception here on Wednesday.

“If Hyderabad and Larkana can be bifurcated for administrative reasons, Punjab could also be divided on the same lines to create a Seraiki province,” he asked.

He said that since its inception Pakistan was being run under the ‘doctrine of necessity’ and added that the constitution had been either suspended or amended repeatedly under this doctrine by military regimes to justify their rule.

Mr Qureshi claimed that most of the politicians had been following this doctrine except for the PPP that had only followed the ‘law of necessity of people’.

Expressing concern over deteriorating conditions in Sindh, he said the writ of the government did not exist in Balochistan while the NWFP had become very sensitive because of official policies. He said the law and order situation in Punjab was also not satisfactory. He feared a situation similar to one prevailing in East Pakistan shortly before its dismemberment.

He observed that the coalition government of Sindh stood divided on the issue of the construction of water reservoirs.

He said it was a failure of the foreign policy of the government that Kabul was accusing Islamabad of interfering into its affairs despite the fact that Pakistan had borne the burden of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees.

The PPP leader warned that the country might disintegrate if the next elections were rigged and suggested that all democratic forces should evolve a joint strategy to prevent the rulers from rigging the polls. “No matter when polls are held Benazir Bhutto will return to supervise the election campaign,” he said.