HYDERABAD: Urging Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah to revalidate Rangers’ policing powers and extend their authority to the whole of Sindh, Sindh United Party (SUP) president Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah has said that the provincial government’s reluctance shows that it wants an NRO [National Reconciliation Ordinance] to protect [errant] ministers and lawmakers.

The SUP chief was speaking at a ‘Meet the Press’ programme and a meeting of his party workers in Tando Mohammed Khan on Thursday.

“Those in power are promoting corruption, thereby inviting martial law,” he observed, adding that people were facing starvation and unemployment that had resulted from the loot and plunder by such elements.

Mr Shah said that lawlessness in Sindh had made lives of people miserable Hurdles were being put in giving extension in Rangers’ policing powers, he said, and observed that the Sindh government wanted to restrict the paramilitary force to Karachi in its operation against terrorists and other criminal elements.

Commenting on Pakistan Peoples Party’s argument that a decision would be taken by the top party leadership after due consultation, the SUP chief said: “It appears that Syed Qaim Ali Shah is a powerless chief minister.” He said the CM was using the pretext of waiting for party high command’s decision to be taken in Dubai. He said Rangers should also be given powers to take action against corruption.

Syed Jalal Shah was of the view that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was pursuing an understanding with the PPP to save its government at the Centre and this had brought the opposition’s role to a naught. If any harm came to democracy, the PML-N and PPP would be responsible for it, he warned, and accused the two parties of promoting instead of curbing corruption.

Regarding the next general elections, Mr Shah said that the SUP would field its candidates for the national and provincial assembly seats for which an alliance with nationalist parties and groups could be considered. The SUP has started a membership drive and would reorganise the party.

He vowed to intensify SUP’s Sindh-wide struggle for the rights of the province and expressed his confidence that nationalist leaders would play their due role in the elected houses. He observed that the PPP and PML-N did not give any benefit to Sindh and that’s why people had already rejected their anti-people decisions.

Insisting that Pakistan could not make progress without holding a census, he called for a fresh schedule for the process. He said a campaign would be launched across Sindh if this was not done in the near future.

‘Credit of peace in Karachi goes to Nawaz Sharif’

SUKKUR: Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) Sindh president MPA Ismail Rahu and vice president Shah Mohammed Shah have said that the credit of restoring peace to Karachi goes to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who took the bold decision of launching a Rangers-led operation in that city.

Speaking at a press conference at the Jacobabad Press Club on Thursday, the two leaders also recounted the measures taken by the prime minister to improve the national economy and said he was pursuing a policy of massive development in the country.

Mr Rahu recalled that Karachi was burning, innocent citizens were being killed in targeted attacks and terrorists were hitting targets of their choice in that city when Mr Sharif took the decision to launch the operation. His decision proved correct when law and order registered a rapid improvement and today the city was by and large peaceful. Extortion and other criminal activities had also been curtailed, he added.

“Throughout the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) governments at the Centre and Sindh, Karachi remained in the grip of terrorism and lawlessness,” Mr Rahu recalled, and observed that the PPP also brought the major national institutions like railways and Wapda to the verge of collapse.

He said it was the Sharif government that streamlined all national institutions on strong footing and took effective measures to eradicate corruption in various departments.

Shah Mohammed Shah said that those who were corrupt from tip to toe were today levelling false allegations of corruption against Nawaz Sharif despite the fact that his name was nowhere mentioned in the Panama Papers leaks. On the contrary

The PML-N leaders told journalists that the PPP usurped rights of growers and denied them the right prices of their produce.

They said that the PPP had already lost grounds in other provinces and now it’s popularity in Sindh had also reached the lowest ebb.

Sham Sunder Lal, Kial Das Kohistani, Akram Abro, Abdul Ghafoor Kharani, Siraj Ahmed Soomro and other PML-N leaders were also present.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2016