KARACHI, June 22: The Chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, has deplored the anti-people policies and the systematic exploitation of the under privileged, and usurping their economic rights whether they were coastal fishermen, tenants of the Okara military farmlands or the low paid teachers in Sindh.

In a statement on Thursday, the former Prime Minister said it was a pity that the fisher folk in Sindh and Balochistan were harassed and tortured instead of addressing their grievances.

The party reiterates its support to the demands of the fishing community and calls upon the regime to address their genuine demands, she said.

While expressing solidarity with the fishing community, she said the party rejected the plan for auctioning fisheries right as unjust, adding that it amounted to depriving the local fishermen of their traditional source of living and trade.

She said the demand of Sindh’s fishermen not to abolish the existing license system was lawful, was in accordance with past practices and was consistent with the Sindh Fisheries Act, 1980.

“The uprooting of fishermen in Sindh, the forcible ejection of tenants of the Okara and other military farms in the Punjab, the sacking of labour, and apathy towards the nation’s builders, the teachers, showed how dictatorship had hurt the rights of the people,” she added.—PPI