MITHI: Awami Tehreek chief Rasool Bux Palijo has warned that hidden hands are busy fomenting religious extremism in Thar and if they are not stopped, the entire region will turn into a hub of religious fanatics within no time.

Talking to journalists here on Saturday, the veteran leader said that America was responsible for all the mess in the region. Enemies of Pakistan would continue to create hurdles in the implementation of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects and various other schemes in smaller provinces, he cautioned.

He criticised successive rulers for failing to formulate strategies to face challenges. The rulers and corrupt officials were responsible for the poor state of schools across the province, he said.

He deplored that on the one hand rulers were eyeing huge coal reserves in Thar to end energy crisis in the country, while on the other they did not bother to reopen hundreds of schools lying closed in the desert district.

He expressed concern over declining literacy rate among girls and urged his party workers and supporters to press the government to reopen closed schools. “The rulers have deliberately kept people of Sindh in a state of utter backwardness so that they could continue to exploit them,” he said.

Mr Palijo said that not only education but other departments like health, family planning and livestock were also in a shambles in Thar and the reverse osmosis plants on which the government claimed to have spent billions of rupees failed to provide safe drinking water to Tharis because of massive corruption.

He slammed Sindh government for failing to provide quality healthcare facilities in the desert region despite unabated deaths of infants and pregnant women and said that hundreds of healthcare units in remote villages were still lying closed.

He said that influential people had occupied government land meant for producing fodder for livestock, the mainstay of desert economy.

He warned officials of mining firms engaged in coal extraction in Thar to “mend their ways” lest local people should kick them out of their area. Sindh’s land was being allotted to big land grabbers who wanted to swallow up all government and private land in big cities of the province, he said.

Mr Palijo said that Sindh was facing the worst governance in decades which had created conditions so pathetic that people were committing suicide in utter disappointment.

Earlier, Mr Palijo told local journalists after presiding over Balak Melo (children’s festival) organised by Sujag Bar Tehreek to mark the World Literacy Day on Friday that the Sindh government and its corrupt bureaucracy were to blame for the destruction of education in the province.

AT president Ghulam Nabi Khoso, advocate Wasand Thari and other party leaders praised organisers for successfully holding children’s festival in Mithi.

Mr Khoso administered oath to newly elected leaders of Sujag Bar Tehreek in the presence of Mr Palijo who reiterated the demand that the government should purge schools and universities of extremist elements and drug peddlers.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2017