HYDERBAD: Maintaining that his party is against the division of Sindh, Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan chief Dr Farooq Sattar has urged “Sindhi-speaking” youths to understand what their “Urdu-speaking” brethren are thinking so that both sides can work together to end the gulf between people of the rural and urban areas.

“We believe in Sindh’s integrity. Let’s demolish this wall of division because the MQM-Pakistan doesn’t believe in Sindh’s division,” he said while speaking at a press conference at Latifabad’s Akbari Ground here on Sunday.

The MQM is going to hold its maiden public meeting at the same venue in Hyderabad on Dec 8 after the Aug 22, 2016 tirade of MQM founder Altaf Hussain because of which Dr Sattar took control of the party.

Barring Kamran Tesori, all senior MQM-P leaders — Amir Khan, Faisal Subzwari, Khwaja Izharul Hassan, Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar, Kanwar Naveed Jameel, Shabbir Kaimkhani — were present.

He said that while the MQM-P in principle opposed the division of Sindh, it wanted to keep Sindhi-speaking people aware of the aspirations of urban youths.

“When East Pakistan was divided the people in West Pakistan didn’t know how that community was dealt with,” he said. “Likewise, youths in rural areas don’t know how their urban counterparts are feeling.”

He said what options the MQM-P would have if the urban youths and students called for a separate province. “That’s why I am appealing to Sindhi intellectuals to jointly suppress any such demand by resolving actual issues.”

Dr Sattar said that Dec 8 would set the tone for a decisive struggle to rid the people of Sindh of feudals and waderas.

He said an “artificial majority” had “usurped democracy” in Sindh.

“Sindhi-speaking university students must understand my contentions. I appeal to the Sindhi people to attend the Dec 8 public meeting.”

He said the MQM would soon challenge the quota system in Sindh before the Supreme Court for which all documentation had been finalised.

MQM-PSP alliance a ‘closed transaction’

Dr Sattar said that the alliance between his party and the Pak Sarzameen Party was a “closed transaction now because the PSP had lost that opportunity”.

“We made sincere efforts for unity but the other side wasted it. This alliance or a working relationship simply doesn’t exist,” he said. “It was not an alliance but in fact an attempt to do away with our identity and existence.”

He said those who joined the PSP could rejoin the MQM-P as workers.

He did not rule out the possibility of a working relationship with the Pir Pagara-led Grand Democratic Alliance and even the Pakistan People’s Party.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2017