April 08, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1429

HYDERABAD, April 7: Sindhi nationalists and intellectuals decided on Sunday to form a committee and task it with conveying people’s feelings to the PPP leadership, ANP’s Asfandyar Wali Khan and friendly parties about Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Muttahida Qaumi Movement headquarters and offering an apology.

The committee formed by a gathering at the Taraqqi Pasand House, which was attended among others by Dr. Qadir Magsi, Prof Mushtaq Mirani, Yousuf Leghari advocate, Ayaz Latif Palijo advocate, Prof Badar Soomro, Nazeer Memon and Dr. Rajab Memon, would also formulate guidelines for the presented.

The committee members’ names would be disclosed later on and if the government showed reluctance in following its advice then they would convince people of Sindh to find a better substitute for the PPP, said STP chairman Dr. Qadir Magsi while briefing journalists about the meeting.

He said that the committee would impress upon the leaders that the MQM should not be included in any political government unless a judicial commission was formed to probe the excesses allegedly committed by the party during last eight years and exonerated it of charges.

The committee would also meet Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazalur Rehman to remind them of the declaration of multi-party conference in London and ask them why had they linked MQM’s participation in Sindh government with its exclusion from federal cabinet.

He said that the committee would request the commission to investigate the recent murders of 117 people after polls and tragedies like Nishtar Park, May 12 and Oct 18, 2007.

Dr Magsi said that the gathering had decided to prepare guidelines for the government advising it on how it should protect interests of Sindh through legislation with simple majority.

He said that he had no objection to a resolution adopted by Sindh Assembly renaming Nawabshah Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. But it would have been more appropriate if a modern city had been developed in her name, he suggested.

The gathering adopted a declaration, condemning Zardari’s visit to MQM headquarters and described it as an insult to the unconditional mandate given to PPP by people of Sindh after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

The declaration said that people of Sindh could not authorise any party, individual or elected representative to bargain, under the directives of Pervez Musharraf or any other dictator, over atrocities that began on Oct 1, 1988 and culminated in killings on Oct 18, 2007.

The declaration asked the PPP and Asif Ali Zardari about why was he unconditionally ready for sharing power with the people who were responsible for banning Sindhi students’ admission to Karachi’s educational institutions, attacking villages, retrenching Sindhis in Karachi’s industries, bifurcating Hyderabad, making Sindhis orphan in the name of City District Government Karachi, selling Dingi and Bundal islands for Rs2 billion bribe to Emaar, handing over lands off coastal belt, National and Super highways to circle and unit in-charges, giving legitimacy to illegal immigrants through Sindh Assembly, holding chief justice, Aitzaz Ahsan and others hostages and torturing media representatives on May 12 and blocking Karsaz road to facilitate killers of Benazir Bhutto on Oct 18, 2007.

The declaration urged the PPP, elected representatives, civil society, media and writers to reject what it termed anti-Sindh pact.