DADU: Leaders of various factions of Sindhi nationalist parties laid wreaths and offered Fateha on the grave of Jeay Sindh Tehreek founder G.M. Syed to mark his 111th birth anniversary in Sann town, the hometown of the nationalist leader, on Saturday.

Activists of the Sindh United Party (SUP), Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), Jeay Sindh Mahaz (JSM), the banned Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM), Jeay Sindh Tehreek and other smaller nationalist parties arrived in the small dusty town in processions to pay their respects to their leader.

G.M. Syed’s grandson Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah who is also chief of the SUP led a procession of family members, relatives and party activists to the grave of his grandfather where they offered Fateha.

Later, addressing a programme at the bungalow of G.M. Syed close to the Indus River, Syed Jalal Shah said that Syed always taught Sindhis to struggle for their rights live in a peaceful manner. He was not only a great politician but also a learned scholar, he said.

About establishment of military courts in the country, he said these courts had eroded the respect of the judiciary. He held former president Asif Ali Zardari and his partners for the sugar cane crisis and lamented there had been no real democracy in the country since the creation of Pakistan.

Former Sindh chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim who was invited to the SUP programme, Syed Zain Shah, Ibrar Kazi and others also spoke.

At a gathering organised by JSQM-Arisar group, its chief Abdul Wahid Arisar said after laying wreaths and offering Fateha that Syed was a great politician who was recognised in the world as a great statesman.

The JSQM-Bashir held a big programme close to the grave of G.M. Syed at which the party chief Sanan Qureshi said that he would not hesitate to sacrifice his own life like his father Bashir Qureshi for the rights of Sindh and Sindhi people.

JSQM leader Dr Niaz Kalani demanded the arrest of murderers of Bashir Qureshi and warned if the killers were not arrested, they would continue their protests.

He also called for release of all activists of nationalist parties who went missing after they were picked up by police or personnel of law enforcement agencies.

JSM chairman Riaz Chandio said at his party’s gathering that the Sindh government was responsible for all injustices being meted out to Sindhis and demanded an end to the killing of activists of nationalist parties in Sindh and Balochistan. The banned JSMM also held a programme at which a recorded video speech of its chairman in hiding, Shafi Mohammad Burfat, was played for the audience. Burfat condemned disappearance and murder of activists and leaders of the JSMM and appealed to the international community and human rights organisations to take notice of the stark injustice with Sindhi people.

JST leader Dr Safdar Sarki reminded the workers that Syed had already said that politics and religion could not go together.

Jeay Sindh Inqalabi Mahaz also held a programme which was addressed by its chief Ghazi Khan Solangi.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2015

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