KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Haider Abbs Rizvi categorically said on Friday that his party never demanded division of Sindh and would not make such a demand in the future, but it did emphasise the need for creating new administrative units in the country, including Sindh.

“Creating administrative units is not division of Sindh,” said Mr Rizvi while speaking at a press conference at Nine Zero, the MQM’s headquarters. “Sindh is our mother and who’ll like to divide his mother...no one can dare divide Sindh.”

He cited examples from history in support of the party’s stand on administrative units and said that Sindh earlier consisted of three administrative units. In 1847, the British rulers merged Sindh into Bombay to create an administrative unit. Till 1955 Pakistan comprised more than 12 states and provinces but later on, only they were merged into two administrative units, East Pakistan and West Pakistan, he said.

He said that like other provinces, Sindh also needed more administrative units. Neighbouring India had only eight provinces at the time of independence in 1947 but now it consisted of 36 administrative units. The number of administrative units in Iran was 31 while Turkey was composed of 81 such units, he added.

He said that administrative units were not created on religious or linguistic lines.

“There is not a single party in Pakistan which opposes creation of administrative units,” he said, adding that the creation of Bahawalpur, South Punjab and Hazara provinces was part of the PML-N manifesto.

He said that former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of the PPP had presented a bill in parliament for Seraiki and Hazara provinces. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had also promised in its manifesto that new administrative units would be formed, he said.

Mr Rizvi condemned PTI leaders, Nadir Akmal Leghari and Dr Arif Alvi for opposing administrative units in Sindh but favouring the same in other three provinces. “Is the PTI’s ‘new Pakistan’ confined to only three provinces and not included Sindh,” he asked.

He said that Mr Alvi, who was a member of the National Assembly from Karachi, and Mr Leghari should refrain from hurting sentiments of the people of Sindh and demanded the PTI leaders take back their ‘anti-Sindh’ statement.

Sit-in against PTI today

The Defence and Clifton Residents Committee and Council of Professionals — the two bodies believed to be associated with the MQM — on Friday appealed to people of Karachi to participate in a sit-in to be staged at Teen Talwar, Clifton, on Saturday at 3pm to record their protest against the PTI leaders’ statement, opposing administrative units in Sindh.

Flanked by office-bearers of the two organisations, Khushbakht Shujaat, a former MNA belonging to the MQM, told a press conference at the Karachi Press Club that the statement of PTI leaders, MNA Dr Alvi and Mr Leghari, was tantamount to driving a wedge between Sindh’s urban and rural population.

“Those calling for carving out new provinces in Pakistan but opposing the same in Sindh deserve to be branded as enemies of Sindh and Karachi,” she added.

She said the purpose of new administrative units was to create a balance in distribution of resources and problems being faced by people.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2014