HYDERABAD, Nov 15: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and several other political and nationalist parties on Thursday continued their protest against the Sindh People’s Local Government Act (SPLGA), 2012 in different parts of Sindh.

PML-N leaders in Hyderabad described the law as a document against unity of Sindh which, they warned, would create differences among the people of Sindh.

They also appealed to Urdu-speaking people to oppose it openly.

Chairman of the PML-N’s fact-finding committee Zain Ansari, party leaders Shafi Mohammad Jamote and Malik Changez Khan of Jamshoro said the committee had been formed a few days ago by the their party to translate the SPLGA into Urdu and Sindhi so that people of Sindh could understand and read it.

They said the act would divide Sindh, adding that no Sindhi-speaking person could tolerate it because the rulers were trying to create a province within Sindh. They rejected the alleged move.

They said their committee would present its report to the PML-N leadership because there was unrest among people because of this law. They said the PPP leaders were illiterate and they could not understand English draft of the act which was against Sindh and its people.

They said activists of the PML-N were being harassed by police and they were being forced to change their loyalty.

They alleged that police had picked up vice-president of Thana Bula Khan PML-N Soomar Barejo a few days ago and were not ready to show his arrest.

They said Barejo should be released, but no action had been taken by the government so far. They said that after Karachi, target killings had started in Hyderabad but the government was playing the role of silent spectator.

Answering a question about Kalabagh Dam, they said PML-N chief Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif reiterated that the dam could not be built without consensus. The dam was a matter of life and death for Sindhi people, they said.

SUKKUR: Jeay Sindh Mahaz (JSM), Pakistan People’s Party-Shaheed Bhutto and several other nationalist groups on Thursday also continued to stage protest demonstrations and rallies in different towns of Sukkur district against the new LG law.

JSM activists and supporters led by its chairman Riaz Chandio, Pakistan’s UN representative Abdullah Hussain Haroon and other leaders took out a rally from City Point and held a public meeting at the Clock Tower roundabout to condemn what they called “imposition of a dual LG system on Sindh with the aim of dividing the province”.

Carrying banners, placards and party flags, the protesters raised slogans against the Sindh coalition and demanded immediate repeal of the law.

Mr Chandio observed that the PPP-led government was under tremendous pressure from its ally, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which represented a small urban population of Sindh but wanted to control all major departments. He said that MQM forced the government to change the LG system through the Sindh People’s Local Government Act-2012 (SPLGA), which provided for two different local governments within Sindh. Such a system, he said, had already been rejected by all parties and groups except PPP and MQM. He said that under a conspiracy, Sindh was being divided into two parts through the SPLGA.

He and other speakers told the rally participants that imposition of the law was the second conspiracy, after the One Unit, to divide Sindh, and vowed to foil all such conspiracies.

They slammed the government ignoring widespread protests against the law continuing across the province ever since it was tabled in the Sindh Assembly.

Warning the government against using tricks to implement the system, they said the people of Sindh knew how to protect their motherland.

They said that PPP had already bowed before MQM by handing over Karachi to it and now it had agreed to hand over the rest of the province to that party through the SPLGA as all major departments like police, services, finance etc would come under the command and control of MQM. “We will not allow this at any cost,” they declared, and termed the new LG law ‘black warrant for Sindh’. Participants in a separate rally organised by PPP-SB and its student wing in Jacobabad also strongly opposed the new LG law and demanded its immediate repeal.

Carrying banners, placards and party flags, they raised slogans against the government and marched from the party’s district office to the local press club, where they staged a sit-in.

Nadeem Qureshi, Khair Muhammad Mir Jat, Abdul Latif Pechuho, Haji Ahmed Khoso, Riaz Soomro, Imamuddin Ghunio, Syed Inam Shah, Noor Muhammad Monhjo and Zulfiqar Chandio spoke to the protesters.

They said that there had been no let up in protests by the masses since the new system was proposed for Sindh. They warned the government against disregarding the will of the masses.

They also accused the government of deliberately delaying the crushing season, saying that sugarcane growers and mill workers were facing immense hardship due to its indifferent attitude. They urged the government to make owners of sugar mills to start the crushing season immediately.