HYDERABAD, May 10: The leader of opposition in the Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said on Thursday that the talk of emergency at a time when the government was at the end of its tether was not a cursory remark made without intent.

After converting parliament into a rubber stamp and weakening other national institutions, the government had now turned on judiciary, the most important pillar of the state, and sown seeds of confrontational politics, he said.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club, the People’s Party Parliamentarians leader said that the government had made a frontal attack on the judiciary, which was not only the final authority to interpret the constitution but also the protector of citizens’ rights.

The judicial crisis, which was of the rulers’ own making, was aimed at achievement of some ulterior designs, he charged.

He said that Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry’s visit to Lahore had been scheduled and announced weeks ago still the government left no stone unturned to stop him. Now attempts were being made to sabotage his visit to Karachi on May 12, he said.

All of a sudden, the Sindh home secretary had written to the registrar of the Supreme Court, requesting that the chief justice should be asked to putt off his visit to avoid violence, while the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had been allowed to hold a rally the same day, he said.

He pointed out that tens of thousands of people had lined up along the roads from Rawalpindi to Lahore and waited for over 25 hours to catch a glimpse of the chief justice but not a single stone was hurled and even push-cart owners did not complain of any harassment.

Why then should there be any fear of violence or sabotage during his visit to Karachi, Mr Khuhro asked and appealed to people to come out in larger numbers to make the Karachi rally bigger than that of Punjab.

About problems confronting Hyderabad, the PPP leader said that the president and the prime minister had announced grants of billions of rupees for the city’s development but the funds were not released unless the district was divided into four parts.

CHOWKANDI: He alleged that land around the historical graveyard of Chowkandi in a suburb of Karachi had been allotted to someone close to rulers who had even been given permission to demolish the historical graves.