DADU: Deputy Speaker of the Sindh Assembly Syeda Shehla Raza on Saturday described the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) rally addressed by its chairman Imran Khan and several other top party leaders in Sukkur a day earlier as poor, claiming that the PTI had no vote bank in Sindh.

“There were no more than 5,000 chairs for audience at the public meeting venue, Lab-i-Mehran, half of which stayed vacant till the end,” she said while speaking to reporters after visiting the shrine of great Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan Sharif. She said she reviewed the security arrangements for caretakers, devotees and other visitors made after the Feb 16 terror attack at the shrine that had left more than 80 people dead and scores of others wounded.

Expressing her satisfaction over the arrangements, she noted that people’s confidence in security forces stood restored as the number of visitors to the shrine showed no decline due to these steps.

Ms Raza observed that the Pakistan Peoples Party and its government was paying due attention to the security of all religious places in the province and ensuring protection to citizens’ life and property in the face of such acts of terrorism.

During her visit, she went round different parts of the shrine and also inspected progress and standard of the construction and renovation at the sites of various development schemes.

She directed the officials concerned to ensure completion of the schemes as soon as possible.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2017