LAHORE, June 3: Pakistan was established with great sacrifices to put an end to exploitation and poverty of the people but this purpose could not be achieved during the past 57 years.

This was stated by veteran politician and Federal Minister Mahmud Ali while speaking at a meeting of the Lahore branch of the Tehrik-i-Takmeel-i-Pakistan at the Hamdard Centre here on Thursday to observe the day when the subcontinent's partition plan to form Pakistan was announced on June 3, 1947.

He said that under a conspiracy the British and the Hindu leaders had announced a defective plan of making a mutilated and truncated Pakistan against the demand of the Muslims.

Through the Lahore Resolution the Muslim League had demanded that the Muslim majority provinces in the north-west and north-east of the subcontinent should form separate homeland for the Muslims, but this demand was not met and the provinces were divided on the basis of Muslim and Hindu majority districts.

He said that Hindu traders and money-lenders had been exploiting the people, mostly the Muslims, and the main purpose of the partition was to put an end to their exploitation.

The British government had sent Lord Mount Batten as Viceroy of India in March 1947 with the direction to make efforts to maintain the unity of the subcontinent. On reaching here, the Lord was amazed to find that not the 100 million Muslims but a large majority of Christians and low caste Hindus wanted partition and were united to support the Quaid-i-Azam in his demand for a separate homeland for them.

Then Hindu leaders in collusion with the British viceroy conspired to give the Quaid a truncated Pakistan. Hindu leader Sardar Patel was on record having said that such a Pakistan would not last for more than six months.

The Hindus continued their conspiracy against Pakistan and 24 years after they succeeded in separating the eastern wing of Pakistan in 1971. He said that neither the British nor the Americans could ever be friends of Pakistan.

He said the World Bank had estimated that Pakistan had 40 per cent poverty. But these were wrong estimates. In fact, there was 60 per cent poverty in the country. The main reason was the heavy external and internal debts. The external debt was over $40 billion now.

More than half of country's budget was spent on debt services leaving meagre amounts for education, health and other social services. He expressed his concern over the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi and asked who was responsible for it. The Muslims were killing one another. He paid tribute to the Shia and Sunni communities of Iraq who, he said, had united against the foreign aggression.

A Christian leader and executive member of TTP, Bishop Wilson John Gill, said that most of the Christians of the subcontinent had supported the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan and its two-nation theory.

He said the Christians could also put forward three-nation theory and demand separate homeland for themselves but they had decided to support Pakistan. He said that if the Christians had not voted for Pakistan, it was not possible to make Pakistan as they had a decisive vote.

The Christians were leading a happy life in Pakistan and the Muslim majority was looking after them. He said that minorities in any country were a power themselves and no majority could ignore them.

He urged the government to withdraw the Section 295 (C) PPC, which was discriminatory law and a source of discontent against the Christian community. Punjab TTP president Adeeb Javidani said that the Quaid-i-Azam had never imagined that Pakistan would be ruled over by the military for such a long period or that it would be a place of terrorism.

He said that the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi was a matter of grave concern for everybody. He suggested that army should be called out for brief period to control the Karachi situation as the civil administration appeared to have failed.

He condemned the terrorists who had disturbed the peace of the city by bomb blasts and shooting the ulema. Other TTP leaders Mukhtar Butt and Syed Zulqarnain Shah also addressed.