LARKANA: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Sindh chapter general secretary Maulana Rashid Mehmood Soomro has dismissed ‘charges’ against madressahs as ‘vicious propaganda’ and said the corrupt rulers and not the seminaries are the only threat to Sindh.

The seminaries were not training terrorists; if the government had any proof, it should produce it before people, said the maulana while addressing a rally at Jinnahbagh here on Monday.

He said that flawed polices, rampant corruption and bad governance had ruined all government departments, cities and towns of the province. It was strange that the rulers were tight-lipped over crumbling law and order, skyrocketing prices, murder of merit and paucity of health and education facilities, he said.

He said that his party was compelled to take to the streets to unveil corruption worth Rs100 billion, allegedly committed in the name of Larkana development package.

He lashed out at elected representatives for their ignorance of the conditions in their constituencies and the voters who had sent them to assemblies. PPP’s nine-year-long rule in Sindh had left everything in a shambles while mindboggling amounts of public money had been siphoned off to foreign bank accounts, he said.

The maulana criticised the rush of feudal lords to the fold of PPP and said PPP head Asif Zardari was dreaming of winning elections uncontested in Sindh, but his dream would never become a reality.

He asked PPP whether Sindh had been handed over to landlords, pirs, Mirs and tribal chieftains who had made corruption, kidnappings and encroachments the order of the day.

He held the Sindh government responsible for poor security arrangements at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and urged it to provide foolproof security to all shrines in the province. He called for tightening the noose around the necks of facilitators and the culprits.

About the census, he said that it was a question of life and death for Sindhis who should not only participate in the exercise but also ensure that they were registered as Sindhis. If Sindhis continued to remain in slumber they would be destined to become a minority, he warned.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2017