HYDERABAD: Pak Sar­za­meen Party (PSP) and Jamaat-i-Islami have lashed out at recent spate of trading of allegations between Pakistan Peoples Party and MQM-Pakistan and held both the parties responsible for compounding civic problems in Hyderabad.

The two parties’ leaders slammed rulers of Sindh and country for reducing the beautiful city of Hyder­abad to ruins.

PSP Hyderabad district president Nadeem Qazi and other leaders said in a press release issued on Monday that PPP and MQM-P were nowadays busy hurling allegations at each other while both the parties, which had remained in power for many years, were themselves responsible for the host of problems, including abject poverty, massive corruption, unemployment, poor health and education facilities, supply of contaminated water, dysfunctional sewerage system, heaps of garbage, stray dogs and crumbling infrastructure etc in the city.

They said that leaders of both the parties had looted public resources and pocketed huge funds allocated for the development of the city. They were now trying to befool people ahead of general elections and make them believe in their half-truths in order that they might once again get their votes and enjoy power for another five years, they said.

They said that people must ask these ‘champions of people’s rights’ about their performance in the past before making a decision about their vote.

Jamaat-i-Islami Hyder­abad emir Hafiz Tahir Majeed said while presiding over a party meeting at the JI office that federal, provincial and local governments had neglected Hyder­abad for years and reduced the city to ruins. Both PPP and MQM-P were engaged in a blame game nowadays and were not ready to resolve people’s issues, he said.

He said that his party would stage a rally for civic issues from Market Tower to Haider Chowk on Jan 28. No government department was working to serve people and officials of federal, provincial and local government departments were only multiplying people’s problems, he said.

He said that people of Hyderabad were forced to drink raw and polluted water, live with pollution, overflowing gutters, poor healthcare, illegal parking, encroachments, low gas pressure, eight-hour power loadshedding in winter, unfair detection bills issued by Hyderabad Electric Sup­ply Company and massive corruption in Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

He said the government had failed to create jobs in public and private sectors for the teeming jobless youths who were becoming disappointed.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2018