KHAIRPUR, June 2: Former Nazim Khairpur and PPP leader Ms Nafisa Shah says a large number of people are living below poverty line with the majority in Sindh due to unemployment.

She made these observations while speaking to public during visit to various villages of Khairpur taluka, on Saturday.

She said the pre-budget hike in prices of flour, cooking oil and other daily consumer items had broken records of last seven years hitting poor people.

She lauded the will of people for fighting the dictatorship against all odds.

Ms Shah said people had always rejected political parties and politicians who harp their tunes in the name of religion.

She predicted the coming elections will break the record of election 1988, when feudal lords and Pirs were defeated by the PPP candidates. She said the MMA was a B-team of the present government as on one hand it was supporting the government while on the other religious extremism.

She asked the government to take a cue from the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair who voluntarily resigned on realising falling popularity.

The killings in Karachi on May 12 had tarnished the image of Pakistan, she said and added the current situation indicates introduction of Talibanisation.

She said the Lal Masjid experience and the rest of activities were all being done on the directives of agencies.

She said forests in Sindh were only on official papers as these were under illegal control of feudal lords who use it for agriculture.

Land grabbers occupy forests in connivance with police while the government was mum over the issue, she said and added: “A group of armed land grabbers in Khairpur was openly encroaching upon public property without any action being taken against them.”