HYDERABAD, May 8: The Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz Chairman Bashir Khan Qureshi on Tuesday expressed his belief that the appearance of a confrontation between the government and the judiciary would subside soon and end up in a patch-up as the issue had been blown out of proportion to divert people’s attention from real problems.
Mr Qureshi was speaking at the "point of view" programme organised by the press club as part of its golden jubilee celebrations. He said that the judges of Punjab and Sindh had always remained divided and cited the case of late Z. A. Bhutto.
He said that Sindh had become a colony of the Punjab and its resources were being looted in the name of religion and Pakistan. Sindh had its separate history, geography and culture and its people were always prosperous, he said.
He said that G. M. Syed had propounded the ideology of an independent and sovereign Sindhu Desh and had to languish in jails for 32 long years for his ideas.
Mr Qureshi said that justice had become a misnomer in Sindh where agencies were picking up people like Safdar Sarki, Asif Baladi, Basheer Shah and many others and holding them incommunicado in punishment for their love of Sindh.
He said that on the one hand outsiders were being settled in the province and issued CNICs while on the other Sindhis were being deprived of all the facilities. Even the Indus River which was a lifeline for Sindh was under the control of Punjab, he charged.
The government went ahead with constructing Greater Thal Canal despite the Sindh Assembly’s rejection of the project on three occasions. It was clearly mentioned in the water agreement of 1945 that Indus River was the exclusive property of Sindh and that no dam or canal could be constructed on the river without the province’s explicit consent, he said.
He vowed to continue struggle for an independent and sovereign Sindhu Desh because he believed there was no other option to end the atrocities.
To a question about destruction of education system in Sindh he blamed the rulers for intentional steps to keep Sindhis in dark ages and quoted Thatta Degree College where only 10 lecturers were teaching although the college required 100 teachers. Similarly, he said many schools and colleges in the interior of Sindh had no teachers at all.
About failure of nationalist alliances Mr Qureshi said that some nationalists acknowledged Sindhis as a nation but did not acknowledge Sindh as a country. No alliance could succeed unless the nationalist leaders gave up their personal egos, lust for power and personal interests, he added.
Mr Qureshi said that the government had to look doing something on the provincial autonomy after it sensed that the people of smaller provinces had become conscious of their rights and the country risked its integrity if people were not given their rights.
He said that the destiny of Urdu speaking people was linked with Sindh. They should join hands with Sindhis for the creation of Sindhu Desh, he said.
To a question about Punjab's support for the chief justice of Pakistan, the senior-vice chairman of the party Dr Niaz Kalani said that it was a minor protest on a minor issue.
The CJP had not taken any notice of the murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti nor had the judiciary in the past taken any notice of the illegal detention of G. M. Syed, he said.
