KARACHI, Dec 8: By raising the Kalabagh dam issue again, the government is trying to divert the nation’s attention from the rulers’ failure in providing adequate relief to quake victims and rehabilitate them.

This was claimed by Ms Benazir Bhutto, Chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party and a former prime minister, in a statement on Thursday. According to the PPP media cell at Bilawal House, Ms Bhutto observed that that for about three decades, military dictators had been trying to divide people of Pakistan by raising such issues with the objective to weaken the opposition to their dictatorship.

She noted that three assemblies had voted against the construction of the Kalabagh dam, and expressed the hope that people of Punjab, who had given sacrifices for Pakistan, would not like to endanger the federation by building the dam already rejected by the three other federating units.

She said that PPP opposed construction of the Kalabagh dam on the grounds that first, it was against the federal principle, therefore illegal; second it would not resolve the water issue; and third it would add to the debt burden of the country, crushing the common people under its weight.

She urged people of the country to get united to defeat the designs of the dictatorship and oppose any act which was against federalism, strength and unity of the country, as well as against the welfare of the common people.

Ms Bhutto asked the government to rebuild Muzaffarabad, Balakot and other areas devastated by the Oct 8 quake, and make investments in schools, hospitals, sanitation, water supplies, strengthening of irrigation canals, flood control and employment, instead of wasting funds on ‘white elephants’ such as the second GHQ in Islamabad in presence of the an adequate one in Rawalpindi.—PPI