HYDERABAD, Sept 30: Scores of activists of the Hur Jamaat and the Ghausia Jamaat held a demonstration outside the press club on Monday in protest against the Pakistan Peoples Party’s provincial minister for population welfare, accusing him of harassing the poor villagers and opponents who did not vote for him in the general elections.

The protesters led by local leaders of the two parties, Khalifa Azeem Samejo and former taluka naib nazim Arbab Samejo, who had arrived here from Umerkot said the minister was using police against them and implicating them in fabricated cases.

They said Minister Ali Mardan Shah had made Chachhro, Dhoro Naro and Khokhrapar no-go areas for his rivals and poor villagers and around 10 fake FIRs had been lodged against them.

They said that police were harassing Azeem Samejo, Arbab Ali Samejo and 30 other unnamed persons after lodging fake FIRs against them. In a similar action, the minister’s brothers Noor Ali Shah, Sarfaraz Shah, SHO of Khokhrapar police station Musaddiq Arain, in-charge of CIA Altaf Shah and mukhtiarkar Aziz Rehman Kalhoro raided Azeem Samejo village a few days ago and picked up a villager, Chanesar Samejo, besides taking away goods from a grocery shop, they said.

They said that political appointments and transfers were being made in schools while watercourses and power supply to Azeem Samejo village had been shut to punish villagers who supported rival parties.