HYDERABAD: Speakers at a conference have said that wave of extremism has now reached even villages of the province as establishment, judiciary and political parties wrangle over power.

Instead of relying on political parties alone, writers, advocates, journalists and students should form a unified front to struggle for the rights of the oppressed classes, they said at the ‘political youth conference’ organised by Progressive Students Collective Hyderabad chapter at local press club on Saturday.

Veteran lawyer and president-elect of High Court Bar Association, Yusuf Leghari, said that he and his colleagues had challenged Gen Ayub’s dictatorship and One Unit on March 4, which marked the day of ‘students’ struggle’ in Sindh.

He urged students to form a confederation comprising students union, press clubs and bar associations for oppressed class.

He said that judiciary yearned to become popular and that was why it had confined itself to summoning bureaucrats to courts. Judiciary would have to play its constitutional role for ensuring rights for people, they said, adding students should file petitions for their rights in courts. They should hold press conferences and organise programmes on different issues including education as part of their democratic struggle, he said.

The collective’s secretary general Haris Azad said that the state and administrations of universities wanted to achieve their own objectives by organising riots among students right from Quaid-i-Azam to Sindh University. The state was not ready to give a platform to students, he said.

He said that with restoration of students union jagirdars and state would not be able to protect their interests. It was time to form an alliance for waging a unified struggle instead of sitting at home. Religious parties were involved in hooliganism in universities of Punjab, he said.

Awami Workers Party leader Dr Abeeha Ashfaq said that Sindh was rich in oil and gas resources but the villages where the gas was discovered remained deprived of it.

She said that multinational companies were working in Sindh but their royalty was not spent on the welfare of Sindh people. Students could find solution to their problems through politics, she said.

Comrade Sidra Iqbal said that March 4 was a historic day in students’ struggle when Ayub dictatorship was subjecting students to torture to keep them away from politics.

She said that educational institutions wanted engineers and doctors but not politicians because they did not want to be questioned for their policies.

Advocate Rabia Memon complained that only males were inducted in legal profession. Parents should guide their daughters about all fields so that they could play their role according to their latent talents. Sindh’s daughters should participate in politics, she said.

Danish Parmar said that colleges in Sindh were faced with serious issues as fees were raised by 100pc. When students protested against unlawful acts of the institutions they were threatened with rustication, he said.

A central leader of the collective, Sagar Sarvech, said that history of March 4 was important to understand students’ politics. Only students’

politics offered solution to political crisis, he said.-

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2023