SUKKUR, Oct 23: Over 150 workers of Qadirpur gas field and political activists held a demonstration and observed a token hunger strike in front of the press club on Thursday, in protest against proposed privatisation of the gas field.

The protestors led by Jam Abdul Fatah Samejo, Zahid Bhutto, Abdul Haq Khatian and Qaiser Zaman held placards and banners inscribed with slogans against the sale of gas field and later observed token hunger strike for six hours.

They told journalists that they would again hold a sit-in on Oct 26 on the National Highway where it connected Sindh with Punjab near the gas field.

They said that the gas field was not only an asset for Sindh but it was also an asset for Pakistan and its privatisation would deprive the country of huge profit, which the gas field added to national exchequer each year.

They said that the share of Qadirpur gas field in the Rs49 billion a year net profit earned by the OGDCL stood at Rs36 billion a year. Hence, privatisation of such a highly profitable entity was unwise and wrong and the proposal should thus be withdrawn immediately, they said.

They said that struggle against the gas field’s sale had now become a national struggle and the government would now have to face resistance throughout the country.

Since October 1995 the gas field had been earning huge profits and it was high time the government was held accountable for all the profit earned by the gas field during these years, they said.

Meanwhile, leader of Sindh United Party Jalal Mehmood Shah joined the hunger strikers for an hour to express his party’s solidarity with their cause.