HYDERABAD: Pak Sar­zameen Party (PSP) chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal on Thursday evening war­ned the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) that he would lead a siege [by his party workers] to its office on Friday if supply to the old power house area was not restored “right now”.

He was speaking to the participants in a rally organised by his party against elec­tricity loadshedding, poor civic conditions and lack of development works in Hyderabad. The rally was taken out from Jail Road to Kohinoor Chowk.

PSP president Anis Qaim­khani, Wasim Aftab, Ashfaq Mangi and former Mutta­hida Qaumi Movement (MQM) lawmakers, who have joined the PSP, also took part in the rally.

Mr Kamal lambasted the Hyderabad mayor, who be­longs to the MQM-Pakis­tan, for his failure to address the issues.

He said that today, Hyderabad with a population of five million did not have development; rather it was hit by 14 hours of loadshedding.

He observed that people of this city had to rush to Karachi in case of a medical emergency and often the patients would die on the way. “The poor [man] is compelled to let his children consume poisonous water because he cannot afford buying clean drinking water.”

The PSP chief said that angels would not descend to resolve the civic issues of Hyderabad; its people would have to rise to the occasion. Now, he said, he and Anis Qaimkhani would lead them from the front if they were ready to snatch their rights.

He said that Hyderabad’s issues could be resolved in just three months but what the incumbent local government representatives would have to do was to stop their corrupt practices.

He told the people of Hyderabad: “You accepted MQM to stand guard at your house but this guard colluded with thieves and robbed you”.

Mr Kamal recalled that just one MPA — Saif Khalid — had staged a protest demonstration and government had to provide 100 water tankers to his area in Karachi. “This is the power of an MPA but MQM-P lawmakers or the governor cannot do this because leadership had sold itself away. We will have to change our so-called guards,” he said

Altaf-led MQM condemned

Mustafa Kamal told the audience that people had lost three generations just for the ‘Mohajir narrative’. “Resultantly, 25,000 of them now lay buried, 3,000 are in exile and 1,800 are languishing in prisons.”

He said that not only the [Altaf Hussain-led] MQM hoodwinked them but it was the root cause of these issues — killing, disappearances, imprisonment and self-exile of thousands of Mohajirs.

He said that those still in exile could come back home, adding that the PSP alone was daringly seeking amn­esty for ‘misguided’ Mohajir youths on the pattern of Baloch militants.

He warned that soon people would again be told to vote for the Mohajir narrative in the next general election.

“This will be the time when you should not get carried away,” he said.

He added that the “days of MQM leaders are numbered”.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2018