HYDERABAD, Nov 29: Sindh Democratic Party chairman Yousuf Leghari has criticized the federal government for maintaining silence over the plan of Punjab to tamper with the territorial boundary of Sindh and occupy 17 Dehs, measuring 60,000 acres, depriving about 50,000 people of their nationhood, schooling in their mother tongue and changing their culture.

In this plan, the SDP chief said, the water supply to Sindh through the Ghotki feeder will also be adversely affected.

In a press statement issued here on Wednesday, he said that although the Sindh government has denied such move about the transfer of Dehs to Punjab but the people of Sindh have no faith in this denial since it has betrayed them on every issue be it the robbery of Indus water, retrenchment of Sindhi employees, transfer of Sindhi officers to other provinces and employment of non-locals on sensitive positions of the Sindh government and illegal payment of more than Rs5 billion to Wapda.

He accused the Sindh government for unjustifiable allotments of land to federal organisations and ex-service men, legalisation of illegal reclamation of coastal land by the Defence Housing Authority worth billions of rupees and failure to protect the life and property of law abiding citizens from dacoits in upper Sindh.

He said that the federal government is duty-bound under the Constitution to protect the territorial rights of the provinces, therefore, it should explain to the people of Pakistan, particularly the Sindhi people, the factual position of the alleged plan of transfer of Sindh’s land to Punjab.

He said the people of Sindh also demanded that Machko area of Ghotki district should be immediately returned to Sindh, which was annexed by Punjab through a manipulative method adding that it was strange to note that on mere application of a tribal chief the Machko area was handed over to Punjab in 1970.

He warned that by annexing the proposed land of Sindh, Punjab was playing with fire. He said that Punjab should not forget that the world community will not remain silent on this matter.