HYDERABAD, April 7: Sindh People’s Party Parliamentarians president Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said his party considers the division of the Hyderabad district as division of the province and will not accept it. He demanded that the government should restore the old status of Hyderabad. He was talking to party workers at the conclusion of a protest procession outside the press club here on Thursday against the Hyderabad division.

Mr Shah alleged there was a conspiracy against Sindh. First its water was closed and then the Kalabagh dam issue was created. While these issues needed solution, new districts were created, he regretted.

He also condemned arrest of MPA Ghulam Qadir Chandio in Nawabshah.

The PPP leader said that at the insistence of a particular party, four districts were carved out of Hyderabad. “We believe that they want to divide Sindh,” he said. The chief minister had no respect for people’s opinion as he had gone to London after taking such a controversial decision, he maintained.

He observed that Hyderabad was the heart of Sindh and those hatching conspiracies against it would not succeed.

Mr Shah claimed that Sindh and central governments had failed to serve people. He said the Sindh government had incurred a loss of Rs23 billion.

He said administrations of new districts were in a limbo because they had no paraphernalia which indicated the haphazard manner in which they were created. “There is unrest in Sindh as administration is incompetent”, he said.

The Sindh PPP chief said his party would continue its struggle against controversial decisions.

The deputy leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Makhdoom Jamiluzzaman, alleged that the rulers wanted to divide Sindh to weaken the PPP.

“We will not accept division of Hyderabad and will foil such a conspiracy because it is tantamount to breaking Sindh”, he said.

He criticized the rulers for not resolving the issue of the Kalabagh dam and the greater Thal canal despite the provincial assembly’s resolutions against the projects. He said the sanctity of the assembly had been violated. Mr Jamiluzzaman vowed to revoke all controversial decisions when the PPP would come into power.

He accused the government of selling interests of Sindh and said the bargain must stop now. “Why don’t they divide Punjab”, he wondered.

He said people had not forgotten the incident of Qambar and if such an incident occurred here, the rulers would be responsible for it. He demanded release of MPA Chandio.

JSM-J: The Jeay Sindh Mahaz (Junejo group) at a meeting held in Radhan termed the Hyderabad division an anti-Sindh act.

It alleged that supremacy of outsiders was being imposed on Sindhis in Hyderabad.

The meeting, presided over by Abdul Khaliq Junejo, noted that the division was a conspiracy against Sindh and its people.

JSQP: The Jeay Sindh Qaum Parast Party has convened a meeting of all nationalist parties at the Qaum Parast House on April 10 to discuss the situation arising out of the division of Hyderabad.

In a statement issued here on Thursday, party chairman Qamar Bhatti condemned the division.

Meanwhile, Muzaffar Sadiq Bhatti, a former caretaker Sindh minister for law and minority affairs, also slammed the division of the district.

DIVISION WELCOMED: Latifabad Union Council-10 Nazim Mohammad Yousuf Qureshi and district council member Amina Naz in a joint statement thanked the chief minister and the MQM leadership for creating three new districts in Hyderabad.