SUKKUR: Pakistan Teh­reek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) parliamentary leader in Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh has said that Sindh’s ruling party is plotting to stage riots during by-polls for NA-205 and the party has reportedly gathered a large number of criminals in Ghotki for the purpose.

Mr Sheikh said at a press conference here on Thurs­day that Abdul Bari Pitafi was amassing arms and he had received information that the armed men associated with Lyari gang war were coming to Ghotki to stage riots.

He said that PTI would protect its workers in Kar­achi and as well as in Ghotki. The Pakistan Peo­ples Party was pitting com­mu­nities and families against one another; the party had driven a wedge among Chandio and Arbab families and now it was doing the same with the Mahar family, he said.

He said that police and district administration were acting like slaves of the PPP and officers like the deputy commissioner of Ghotki were ruining the system. The PPP was profusely spending its ill-gotten money on the by-polls, he alleged.

He said that PPP rulers were not capable to run the province and said it was shameful that police had used batons and water cannon against nurses in Karachi who were sisters and daughters of Sindh and their only crime was raising voice for their rights.

The PTI stood by the oppressed people of the province, he said and added that his party would ensure that the nurses were given their due rights.

He said: “PPP is torturing our daughters and we strongly condemn it. Benazir Bhutto, Aseefa and Bakhtawar are also daughters of Sindh but only daughters of the poor are tortured and disgraced on roads.”

The entire PPP leadership had been present in Ghotki and Sukkur for the past six days while hospitals in Sukkur were in a shambles, there were no medicines for the poor patients and people did not even have facility of drinking water in most towns and villages. But Bilawal was doing nothing to resolve these problems as he was busy agitating against ‘price hike’ on the border of Sindh-Punjab, he said.

He said that instead of holding a rally at the Punjab border, Bilawal should have visited Larkana where a three-month-old AIDS pati­ent died just two days ago and he should also have gone to Thar where children were dying every day.

He said that his party would recover looted resour­ces from thieves of public money and spend it on the welfare of masses. The governments of Asif Ali Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif looted billions and increased burden of loan on Pakistan.

He said that the Sindh government would be gone within a few months as the corrupt politicians were now being arrested. Imran Khan had promised that all the looted money would be recovered, he added.

Mr Sheikh was flanked by senior PTI leaders Mubeen Ahmed Jatoi, Syed Tahir Hus­sain Shah, Iftikhar Loond, Pappu Khan Cha­char, Agha Moula Bux Pat­han and others at the press conference.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2019