BADIN: In what is being seen as an expression of sheer disappointment by activists against their respective leadership, scores of members of the mainstream Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) and its Arisar faction as well as the Jeay Sindh Mahaz (JSM) in this district on Tuesday announced their decision to part ways with their respective party/group.

Speaking at a press conference at the Badin Press Club, as many as 37 activists, including some senior district-level leaders, said they had decided to resign from the membership of their respective party/group and work for the solidarity of the country.

Syed Ali Haider Shah, the Badin district chief of the JSQM (led by Sannan Qureshi), was prominent among the activists present at the press conference. He said that he and the 36 other activists had got fed up with the way their leaders were handling party affairs.

“There is no scope for nationalist parties/groups and nationalist politics in Sindh under the given situation,” he said.

Some other JSQM and JSM activists were of the view that their respective leaderships had failed to protect and guide them on what to do in the prevailing conditions.

A couple of JSQM activists said the party could not hold the death anniversary of its leader, Bashir Khan Qureshi. The leadership remained underground off and on leaving its followers in the lurch, they added.

Since the launch of the recent crackdown on nationalist groups having separatist views, 87 activists have quit JSQM and JSM.

A close aide to the late G.M. Syed, Ustad Mohammad Rahimoon, who also served as the convener of the proscribed Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM) was the first to publicly announce his decision to do away with nationalist politics after he was allegedly kept in detention for several months before being released a few weeks ago by law enforcers.

Rahimoon was allegedly taken away from his house in Kario Ghanwar town earlier this year.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2017