KARACHI, May 14: A Pakhtoon “Loya Jirga”, convened by the Awami National Party, Sindh chapter, on Sunday at the Bacha Khan Markaz, has formed an action committee comprising elders of 61 organizations to strive for resolving problems being faced by the Pakhtoons in Sindh and Karachi in particular.

After the jirga, deliberations of which were spread over eight hours, Shahi Syed, President of the ANP Sindh, read out the nine demands before journalists.

These included leasing out of all katchi abadis with all basic amenities, and compensation and alternate plots for the affected residents of Juma Goth, Mansehra Colony, Bilal Colony, Sikander Goth, Lasi Goth, Yusuf Goth, Lashari Goth, Allahwali Colony and other razed settlements.

If the government wants to ban plying of two-stroke rickshaws and 30-year-old vehicles, their owners should be provided compensation and alternate employment, the jirga said.

The bus stops of vehicles operating for the Punjab, interior Sindh, and Balochistan are located in the city centre but only the bus stops of those operating to the NWFP are being removed from the city centre.

Terming this policy of the city government as prejudiced, the jirga condemned it and demanded that until alternate arrangements were made, the bus stops should not be closed.

The decision to ban plying of 1975 model vehicles should be withdrawn and goods transporters, operating from the old Sabzi Mandi from the last 40 years, should be provided a truck stand near the new Sabzi Mandi.

The action committee will meet next Sunday to make public their strategy of demands fulfilled, Mr Syed added.

Before reading out the demands, Mr Syed said that the presence of about three million Pakhtoons in Sindh, mostly in Karachi, was the outcome of criminal negligence of the country’s rulers whose flawed and anti-people planning had ignored the NWFP and other Pakhtoon localities from industrialization, promotion of trade and cultivation, so that natural resources, water, power, forests, coal and other minerals could be utilized for the development industries, trade and agriculture of Karachi and the Punjab.

Pakistan is a federation and multi-ethnic state and Pakhtoons being one of the important federating units and citizens of this country have the constitutional right to live, work and carryout business in any part of the country.

But recently in Sindh, and Karachi in particular, the government issued orders for razing katchi abadis and against transporters, which had resulted in multiplying the difficulties for the Pakhtoons.

He further said that due to the calculated moves of the rulers, the electoral constituencies had been carved out in such a manner that they (Pakhtoon) were deprived of their due representation in the parliament and civic institutions of the province.