HYDERABAD: Several Sindhi nationalist groups on Monday expressed their strong reservations over Prime Minister Imran Khan’s statement regarding issuance of computerised national identity cards (CNICs) to Pakistan-born children of Bengalis and Afghans.

Qaumi Awami Tehreek (QAT) president Ayaz Latif Palijo argued that if 2.5 million “illegal immigrants”, mostly Bengalis and Afghans, living in Sindh were given citizenship, then there was every likelihood that they would be able to form their own government in the province in future.

In a statement issued here on Monday, Mr Palijo said that such a big population would be in a position to send their 20-25 candidates to the national and provincial assemblies from Karachi alone.

He urged the Sindh government to convene a multiparty conference on the issue, as well as that of Kalabagh dam. They advised the prime minister not to speak in support of Kalabagh dam and illegal immigrants or the rolling back of the 18th Constitutional amendment.

According to the QAT chief, Pakistan is facing international conspiracies and granting nationality to illegal immigrants will be tantamount to help terrorists -- involved in the Army Public School and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine carnages as well as suicide and other terrorist attacks on religious places in Sindh -- to move freely and unchecked across the country. He noted that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) also favoured issuance of CNICs to illegal immigrants to win over them. But any such step would be undermining permanent interests of Sindh, he warned.

Mr Palijo contested argument that “these aliens have been living in Pakistan for four decades” to justify citizenship for them; and pointed out that countries like Saudi Arabia had not given citizenship to the Pakistanis who had been living there for eight decades.

Jeay Sindh Mahaz-Riaz (JSM-R) leader Riaz Ali Chandio, presiding over a meeting of the party’s central committee on Monday, condemned the PM’s statement saying that while projects like Kalabagh dam were being contemplated to usurp Sindh’s water, the prime minister had started a game to convert Sindhis into a minority in this province.

He said PTI lawmakers from Sindh should work towards expelling illegal immigrants in order to prove their loyalty to Sindh.

A senior Sindh Taraqi-pasand Party (STP) leader, Jam Abdul Fatah Samejo, also criticised the PM’s statement observing that nowhere in PTI’s manifesto it was mentioned such a step would be taken by its government. He said that these illegal immigrants were a big hurdle in the country’s economic progress and a burden on the province’s natural resources.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2018