KARACHI, May 1: Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan said on Saturday that wheat crisis in the NWFP had become so acute that flour had disappeared from markets, with people left searching for it everywhere.

He warned: "If our children died of hunger for want of bread, we would be constrained to cut off power supply to Punjab, plunging it into darkness."

Mr Khan was addressing a big 'May day' workers meeting in Landhi on Saturday, organized by ANP Sindh chapter, to express solidarity with the workers.

He held President Pervez Musharraf and the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal responsible for the "prevailing situation in the country".

He said it was a sense of deprivation among the people of former East Pakistan which resulted in the dismemberment of the country. Even now, he added, if this sense was allowed to grow in the provinces, "anything could happen".

Mr Khan said if legal means of struggle to seek resolutions of their problems were closed to the people, they would be compelled to take recourse to unconstitutional and illegal methods. The responsibility of any untoward situation in that case would lie with the government, he warned.

About sky-rocketing prices of essential goods, he said the workers' wages were so meagre that they were being unable to make both ends meet.

At the public meeting, different resolutions were adopted condemning the Karachi city government for "depriving the poor people of respectable sources of income by uprooting patharays and pushcarts".

The meeting demanded that appropriate places be provided to such people so that they could run their businesses.

By another resolution, the meeting slammed wheat flour crisis as well as the off-and-on increase in petroleum prices. It also expressed concern over the authorities' failure to provide potable water and proper sewerage system in settlements of workers and poor people.

The meeting was presided over by ANP's provincial president Shahi Syed. Others who addressed it were Qamoos Gul Khattak, Amin Khattak, Rana Gul Afridi, Farooq Bangash, Noorullah and Bashir Jan.