HYDERABAD, Sept 4: A Pakistan People’s Party leader, Syed Naveed Qamar, has accused President Gen Pervez Musharraf of encouraging individual politics in violation of his own commitments, and added that Nawaz Sharif-Benazir specific laws were being enacted to keep the leaders of the two mainstream parties out of the election process.

He was addressing a news conference at his Latifabad residence here on Wednesday.

He announced that a central leader of the PTI, Noor Ali Bhatti, and Raees Jan Mohammad Bhatti, who were the elders of the Bhatti clan of Tando Mohammad Khan, had joined the PPP today.

Both these gentlemen were also present in the press conference.

Welcoming the Bhattis in the fold of the PPP, he said it required a lot of courage to join an anti-establishment party when the government was creating hurdles in the path of the PPP and enacting “Draconian laws” to totally eliminate the role of the PPP chairperson from politics.

He said that President Gen Musharraf had only one objective — to bring the king’s party into power.

He, however, said that the federal parties had checkmated President Musharraf by forging unity and making adjustment in the seats.

Naveed Qamar said that now it was a straight fight between democratic and anti-democratic forces.

He said no one should underestimate the protest demonstrations throughout the country against the rejection of Benazir Bhutto’s nomination papers, and added that when these protests gained momentum the situation would take a different turn.

He said the war on this issue will be fought on all political and judicial forums.

He deplored the attitude of the sugar mill owners saying that the closure of sugar mills and retrenchment of workers would have a devastating affect on the agrarian economy of Sindh, especially on sugarcane-growing areas like Tando Mohammad Khan.

The PPP leader pointed out that sugar mills had entered an unholy alliance by forming a cartel and resorted to massive retrenchments resulting in 50 to 75 per cent sugar mill workers becoming jobless.

He further said that the sugar mills were also openly violating the relevant laws under which they were bound to start the crushing season from Oct 15.

He, however, said that the sugar mills had now decided to start the crushing season in December or January, which would create an alarming situation.

He said on the one hand sugarcane crops will be destroyed and on the other wheat crops will not be able to be sown due to the delay in the crushing season as wheat is grown in the same fields after the cutting of sugarcane.

He was equally critical of the proposed closure of the Fauji Sugar Mills, Tando Mohammad Khan.

He regretted that investment was being stopped by the Fauji Foundation in Sindh alone.

Naveed Qamar warned that this would send out wrong signals of stepmotherly treatment to Sindh.

He appealed to the authorities concerned not to close the Fauji Sugar Mills and defy the powerful lobby of the sugar mill owners in the larger interest of Pakistan.

MUTTAHIDA CRITICIZED: Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party chairman Dr Qadir Magsi has severely criticized the utterances of the Sindh governor that he was prepared to work with the chief minister of the Muttahida Quami Movement saying that it smacked of conspiracy.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, he said that the statement of the Sindh governor and his ministers clearly indicated that some agreement had already been reached between the establishment and the Muttahida to hand over power in Sindh to the MQM, and added that the “coming events were casting their shadows in advance”.

He made it clear that the people of Sindh would never tolerate any such conspiracy.

He said that during the last three years, the Muttahida had been silently supporting the non-democratic government.

He claimed that at the time the MQM had announced boycotting the district and city government elections, he had publicly voiced his apprehensions that the establishment had assured the Muttahida that in Sindh power would be transferred to it and it would have its own chief minister.

He said that this had been proved by the utterances of the Sindh governor.

He pointed out that every nation had the inherent right of sovereignty over its own territory.

He warned the Sindhi people that if they surrendered their inherent rights then they would become slaves forever.