MULTAN, Jan 26: Sindhi Nationalist and Awami Tehreek leader Rasool Bakhsh Palijo has expressed concern over the escalation of tension between Pakistan and India and said that latter was playing in the hands of America.

Addressing a press conference on Saturday, he deplored Indian leadership for what he said its ‘war mania’.

He said the US was playing with fire through a very dangerous brinkmanship in a region which had become a ‘nuclear shop’.

He asked Pakistan and India to exercise restraint and resolve the crisis at their own instead of fulfilling others’ agenda.

Palijo said power had never been transferred to people in Pakistan since the partition. After independence, the power in India was transferred to the people who had a long history of political struggle against the colonialism.

But in Pakistan, after a short period when Quaid-i-Azam was on the helm of affairs, the power had been in the hands of army and bureaucracy. “Agents of the former colonial masters have been ruling the country,” he added.

He said the army did not represent the whole country as it was composed of a one big province. He demanded that smaller provinces, especially Sindh and Balochistan, be also given their proportionate share in the army.

Mr Palijo said the sense of deprivation in smaller provinces had been growing day by day and the situation in Sindh was more serious than ever.

He urged the social and political circles of Punjab to realize the sensitivity of the situation and compel their leadership to behave sensibly.

He said democracy could not take roots in the country without doing away with the feudalism and ‘spiritual’ dictatorship in the society.

He said democracy was another name of making choices but in the presence of ‘waderas’ and ‘mullahs’ one could not exercise the right to vote freely.

He underlined the need of further increase in the seats of parliament, saying in UK some 80,000 voters constituted a seat of House of Commons.