THATTA, July 10: The president, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), Sindh, Maulana Asadullah Bhutto said that the abuse of state power on issues like the greater Thal canal, six miles of which had already been excavated against the interests of Sindh, would soon bring the rulers to their logical end.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, with Allama M. Arshad Zahid and Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro, the provincial vice president and general secretary of the MMA respectively, he said a reference should be filed against President Pervez Musharraf, the governor, Punjab, Khalid Maqbool, the chairman, Wapda, Zulfiqar, and others for excavating the canal without the consensus of Sindh.

He said President Bush has committed crime against humanity by bombarding Afghanistan and should be prosecuted as per international law.

He said the Pakistani intelligence agencies and the police in a bid to appease their American masters were implicating innocent religious people in fake cases.

He said that the recent recoveries of weapons and involvement of innocent religious people in a number of cases was nothing but a conspiracy hatched at the instigation of the American masters.

He claimed that if the police was provided opportunities it would recover illicit weapons even from the residence of President Pervez Musharraf and Major Gen Rashid Qureshi.

He said President Musharraf should better leave political packages to the next elected government.

He said the government was discouraging political parties from participating in the coming polls so as to postpone it. But almost all political parties, he claimed, were united at least on one point: to contest the elections and get rid of the autocratic ruler.

He said that all political parties were in constant touch with each other and had devised a strategy in case Pervez Musharraf postponed the elections.

He condemned the ban on political meetings.