KARACHI: Calling more provinces a constitutional requirement, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Sunday urged for creation of new administrative units in the country as this would benefit the federation.

Talking to reporters after attending Quran khwani and fateha to mark the death anniversary of Shuhda-i-Urdu, or those killed in 1972 during language riots, MQM-P convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said the elements who opposed new provinces and called this demand treason were traitors themselves; they did not want Pakistan to become stronger and prosper with an effective system of governance.

“Creation of new provinces and administrative units is actually a constitutional requirement,” he said. “It’s not something like treason or anti-state thought. Those who call it treason are actually traitors themselves.”

He questioned: “How can one just reject these sane voices which are raised only to make Pakistan stronger and its governing system more effective? This is absolutely in the national interest of the country and its people.”

Death anniversary of Shuhda-i-Urdu observed

He accused the PPP government of always toeing the ethnic line while being in power and referred to the July 1972 tragedy that killed several people for raising voice for the respect and dignity of the national language — Urdu.

“The people were attacked only because they were calling for the dignity of the national language. That was the time when we were thrown from Quaid-i-Azam’s Pakistan to [Zulfikar Ali] Bhutto’s Pakistan. The city’s still bleeding from those wounds, but no one cares,” he said.

Questioning the authenticity and legal value of the recently-formed local government in Karachi led by the PPP, he said the city was “handed over” to those who had never enjoyed the mandate of the metropolis.

“Those, who were never given any mandate in the last 50 years, are behaving as the owner of this city,” said Dr Siddiqui. “The question should also be asked from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Jamaat-i-Islami, who despite knowing a fraud in the Karachi’s delimitation and manipulation in the population count, insisted on contesting the local government polls and now they are crying foul play.”

He said that the local government system in Karachi was in fact a robbery of the city mandate to install a “fake mayor and flawed system”.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2023