HYDERABAD, Oct 19: The Atta Chakki Owners Association has threatened grind to a halt during the holy month of Ramazan, if flour mills were supplied with rotten wheat.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club on Sunday, the president of association Nawab Ali and other office-bearers Mohammad Rafique, Mohammad Hafiz and Mohammad Yamin Qureshi said the wheat purchased by the Sindh food department in 1999-2000 was still rotting in godowns of Sukkur, Larkana and Karachi which had become unfit for human consumption.

They said the Sindh food department had directed deputy directors of the former Hyderabad division that they should lift 100,000 bags of wheat from Khairpur and supply the same to the flour mill owners of the division.

They said deputy directors after inspecting the wheat had submitted reports in Sept 2003 that the wheat had been totally destroyed during rains and was injurious to human health. They claimed the deputy director food refused to lift the rotten wheat and he was made to leave the charge on Oct 10.

The office-bearers said the new deputy director food was also under tremendous pressure. They said on Oct 18, 360 bags reached godowns of Hyderabad from Ranipur.

Nawab Ali alleged under a planned conspiracy wheat was imported by the Sindh bureaucracy from Punjab and sold in the market after getting kickbacks whereas the wheat purchased three years back was not disposed of which had now become unfit for human consumption. They said huge quantity of wheat, almost three million bags, had been spoiled and out of this 700,000 bags had been auctioned at Rs6.37 per kg.

The office-bearers of the association appealed to the president and prime minister, Sindh governor and chief minister to place senior officers of the food department under suspension and order a high level inquiry to find out as to how 3 million bags of wheat were destroyed.

They demanded the transportation of rotten wheat from Khairpur should be stopped forthwith otherwise the mill owners of Hyderabad would close their mills.

MUET entry test: The Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, conducted entry test for admission to the university at the Public School, Latifabad, here on Sunday.

As many as 3,142 candidates, including 264 girls, appeared in the test for 931 seats in 16 different fields.

A team of the Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Karachi, supervised the test.

SPLA: Leaders of the Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association, Prof Liaquat Aziz, Mohammad Siddiq Unnar, Taj Joyo, Prof Sardar Baloch and others, have congratulated newly-elected office-bearers of the Hyderabad SPLA.