February 09, 2008	Saturday	Safar 01, 1429

SUKKUR, Feb 8: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has demanded provincial autonomy to federating units besides placing all productive resources including minerals, oil and gas as well as royalties at their disposal.

Addressing a public meeting of MQM workers at Minara road here on Friday, Altaf Hussain said that international conspiracies were being hatched against Pakistan which could be foiled only with unity of the masses.

In the speech, simultaneously heard in Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas besides Sukkur, he said Pakistan was facing internal as well as external dangers, so “we should not go for confrontation against each other and, instead should acknowledge each other’s rights”.

He said the people should consider the problems of Sindh province, which generated 70 per cent of country’s revenue and what it got in return from the center, was an open secret.

He said Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi, after which a reign of terror was unleashed in Sindh. Vehicles and properties were burnt and it was aimed at fanning hatred on lingual basis, he added..

He said that vested interests were afraid of the MQM because it wanted to bring about a revolution in the country against feudals ,capitalists and all those, who had got billions of their bank loans waived.

The looted wealth should be recovered from them and the day was near, he said

Altaf Hussain said that it would take stock of excesses committed against Sindh.

He said that the interest of Urdu speaking people was with Sindh which was their soil, because they lived and died here and whatever they earned, was spent in Sindh. Their dead bodies were not transported to other provinces and they were buried here, he said.

He said ‘external forces’ were involved in loot and plunder of Sindh’s resources. He said that the MQM was the party which belonged to 98 per cent of masses of the country.

A candidate for women seat, Naheed Khan, candidate for PS-1 Sukkur Saeed Iqbal Malik, candidate for NA-198 Syed Tahir Hussain Shah were among those thousand of people who were present on the occasion.