KARACHI: The Sindh United Party (SUP) on Sunday called for deployment of Rangers in the province to stop water theft, which, it said had aggravated the situation in the age of grave water shortages.

“The lives of the people have been ruined because of incessant crisis spawned by the shortage of water and power outages,” said Zain Shah, SUP’s senior-vice president, while addressing party’s leaders and cadres at Hyder Manzil.

He said there was not only deficiency of drinking water in Sindh, but, most of the agricultural areas of the province were facing worst shortages of water.

He said the Pakistan Peoples Party used to turn a nationalist party whenever elections got closer and “sheds crocodile’s tears”. He claimed the Sindh government was pretending that the water had been stopped by the federation, while, “as a matter of fact, influential people of that party are involved in stealing water”.

“The ruling feudal lords of Sindh have created artificial water crisis and left millions of peasants starving,” he claimed.

He said the PPP’s leaders and their cohorts were irrigating their millions of acres while small growers were searching for water for drinking purpose and their lands.

He said thousands of acres of fertile lands had turned barren and people were forced to migrate from their ancestral lands.

“The PPP government is killing people economically,” he said.

Mr Shah claimed plan to turn Sindhis into minority was being implemented by issuance of computerised national identity cards to Burmese, Bengalese and Afghan refugees.

“The PPP is meant to represent Sindh in Islamabad, but it is playing silent spectator while doors for employment, education and health are being closed for us.”

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2018