HYDERABAD, Oct 7 Leaders of civil society and different peasant organisations vowed on Wednesday to launch a countrywide movement to mount pressure on the government to recover Mr Amarchand advocate who, they alleged, had been kidnapped by an influential feudal lord of Mirpurkhas Thakur Nazeer Kaimkhani.
Addressing a big procession organised by the Sindh Hari Mazdoor Mahaz here outside the press club, the Mahaz president Comrade Tajo Bheel and the South Asia Partnership leader Zulfiqar Shah accused Kaimkhani of unleashing inhuman atrocities against his haris and their supporters.
The procession started from the Sindh University old campus and terminated at the press club.
Zulfiqar Shah said that Amarchand advocate was kidnapped as a punishment for raising voice for the rights of tillers of the land. The administration and law enforcement agencies were supporting the feudal lord, he alleged.
He warned that if Amarchand was not recovered the peasants would besiege Kaimkhani's residence and launch a vigorous movement throughout the province during which hunger strike would be observed outside the Karachi press club on Oct 9 and demonstrations and hunger strikes would be held simultaneously across the province on Oct 11.
If he was recovered even after the province-wide protest, demonstrations would be held in Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Faisalabad and Multan, he said.
Tajo Bheel said that Mirpurkhas administration was not taking serious measures for recovering Amarchand nor had it taken any action against Thakur Nazeer Kaimkhani against whom an FIR had already been registered.
The president of Sindh Hari Porhiyat Council Punhal Sario accused Kaimkhani of running private jails and holding peasants hostage after kidnapping them.
He said that Kaimkhani was being supported by a political party. The PPP government was not implementing promises made by Benazir Bhutto and the party had been made a hostage by waderas and jagirdars.
Wajid Laghari, Zain Daudpoto, Ali Mir Shah, Rahmatullah Turk, Haider Malookani and others also spoke at the procession.
LABOUR MINISTER Sindh Minister for Labour Ameer Nawab Khan has said that whenever democracy is restored in the country, remnants of dictatorship start hatching conspiracies to derail it.
Addressing an Eid Milan Party at the Zeal Pak Colony here on Tuesday night, the minister said urged people and media persons to help the government combat the anti-democratic elements so that it could concentrate on welfare works.
Giving details of the welfare works, the minister said that the government had increased minimum wages of workers from Rs4,000 to 6,000 and pensions from Rs1,500 to Rs2,000 and provided books and transport facility to workers' children free of cost. Besides, quality medicines made by national and multinational companies regardless of their cost were also being provided to workers, he said.
