KARACHI, Jan 26: On the eve of the Sindh Assembly’s first regular session the People’s Party Parliamentarians accused the government of threatening its MPA from Jacobabad that he would be implicated in Al Qaeda-related activities if he did not give in to the ruling coalition’s demands.

Describing Sindh Chief Minister Ali Mohammed Mahar’s claim of pursuing a non-coercive policy towards the opposition “a big lie,” the PPP parliamentary party leader in the Sindh Assembly, Nisar Khuhro, claimed on Sunday that his party’s MPA from Jacobabad region Sohrab Sarki was being threatened by the government that he would be implicated in Al Qaeda-related cases if he did not cooperate with the government.

“If the chief minister is honest about not pursuing a coercive policy towards the opposition, then why are such threats being made, why Sohrab’s Sarki’s nephew has been booked in a dacoity case without even verifying the contents of the FIR,” said Mr Khuhro, adding that this and other issues were of vital concern to the people of Sindh and his party would raise them in the assembly session on Monday.

The government, he claimed, was treading on a very dangerous path by implicating opposition MPAs and their supporters in false cases. In view of such serious allegations the session on Monday is expected to be noisy and stormy.

Mr Khuhro, who presided over a meeting of the parliamentary party of the PPP at his residence, said, at the outset, that none of his MPAs had been provided copies of order of the day.

He said that his party was examining the circumstances due to which the government had been compelled to summon its own session after a long silence, and scuttled the opposition’s application for a requisitioned session to discuss vital issues concerning Sindh, including the effect of delay in the NFC award, the Thal Canal issue, law and order, unemployment and lack of development, the problems faced by sugarcane growers and host of other issues.

He pointed out that due to the delay in the NFC award, on the pretext of reconstituting the National Finance Commission, Sindh was likely to lose another Rs16 billion, bringing the total loss of the province since 1997 to Rs96 billion.

“They are not interested in discussing and taking a position on the real issues concerning the people of Sindh. They are trying to run away from realities,” he said

Mr Khuhro said that his party would certainly raise all these issue, including the alleged government interference in by-elections that forced the PPP candidates to withdraw from the contest at the last moment in protest, and the resultant violence that vitiated the law and order situation in the province.

Referring to the anti-extortion ordinance, which will be introduced in the assembly as a bill on Monday, he said “it only means that extortion was legal during the three years of military rule.”

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal is bracing itself for an opportunity to put the government on the defensive on the election-related violence in Karachi and the subsequent appearance of flags and banners blaming it for the law and order situation.