HYDERABAD: Leaders of various nationalist parties and civil society organisations at an Iftar dinner hosted by the Sindh Sufi Forum (SSF) on Monday called for fresh general elections, saying that the Feb 8 polls were grossly rigged. They demanded free, fair and transparent elections.

They also expressed their serious concern over worst law and order situation in Sindh and the “dangerous trend of attacks on common people, especially those belonging to the weaker sections of society and the Hindu community, in upper districts of Sindh under a conspiracy”.

The leaders who attended the programme included Sindh United Party’s Syed Zain Shah, Amer Azad Panhwar and Roshan Buriro, Jeay Sindh Mahaz-Riaz chief Riaz Ali Chandio, former Sindh advocate general Yousuf Leghari, Qamar Zaman Rajpar and Ramesh Gupta.

The gathering adopted some resolutions, one of them calling for free, fair and transparent general elections and rejecting the results of the Feb 8 polls.

Another resolution called for an effective operation to ensure protection of citizens’ life and property and another one demanded immediate recovery of a minority community girl, ‘PK’, allegedly abducted from Sukkur four years ago.

The leaders observed that federal government had bowed down before International Monetary Fund (IMF) as instead of giving relief to people, it had made life of common man miserable by increasing gas and electricity tariffs and rates of petroleum and essential products exorbitantly.

They stressed that the elite class should be taxed instead of poor people so that common people could heave a sigh of relief.

They said protection of Sindhi nation and Sindh’s lands, islands and natural resources should be ensured.

Yet another resolution termed the MDCAT test system a complete failure. Under the guise of donation, private medical universities were collecting hundreds of thousands of rupees from every applicant and instead of giving admission to eligible students of Sindh, they were accommodating candidates from other provinces, they deplored.

They also asserted that wheat growers should be given adequate rate of their produce and provided gunny bags. They demanded an end to loadshedding of electricity and gas in Sindh.

“Sindh is burning today due to the worst law and order situation and the PPP government is busy in corruption, transfers & posting and money-minting. Its anti-people and political revenge policies should be stopped,” they said.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2024