March 12, 2007	Monday	Safar 22, 1428

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HYDERABAD, March 11: Sindh National Front chief Mumtaz Ali Bhutto has said that facts about the decision against the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan have not yet come to fore but it is obvious that the rulers are acting on their personal likes and dislikes.

Speaking at a press conference in Qasimabad on Sunday, he said that legally the president had no powers to act against the chief justice. He, however, hastened to add that facts would come to the surface in due course of time.

Mr Bhutto said that he deserved credit for highlighting the issue of provincial autonomy 22 years ago which was now being discussed by all the political parties of the country.

He said that even the ‘federalist’ parties were now demanding that the 1940 Resolution be implemented in letter and spirit and provincial autonomy be given to the provinces.

He said that Sindh was suffering from lawlessness, price hike and unemployment more than other provinces as the rulers of the province had shown indifference to the problems of the common people.

He said that police were having liaison with criminals and corruption in the province was at its peak. He said that the life of the poor had become miserable.

He said that deterioration in the situation could be gauged from the fact that men and women of over 60 years of age had been implicated in fabricated cases of firing and obstruction in official duties, a reference to registration of a criminal case against one of Mr Bhutto’s peasants and his female relatives.

He said that he had sent his point of view to the hosts of a proposed multi-party conference in London, suggesting that a new constitutional structure, instead of arrangements under the constitution of 1973, be put in place.

Mr Bhutto said that ‘hidden motives’ must be preventing People’s Party Parliamentarians leader Benazir Bhutto from attending the conference.

About the all-party conference on provincial autonomy recently hosted by the Sindh government, he said that it was a hoax and its sole purpose was to gain publicity for the government. He said that no good had come out of the conference for the common people.

Talking about “Sindhi Jago Sindh Bachayo” campaign launched by his party, he said that it was continuing with full vigour and had gone a long way in uniting the Sindhi people.