HYDERABAD, Jan 23: Leaders of social welfare organisations have supported the call by the Save Sindh Committee for a wheel-jam strike on Jan 28 and criticised the Muttahida Qaumi Movement for tabling the 20th Constitutional Amendment bill in the National Assembly for creation of provinces.
Speakers at a meeting convened by Paigham-i-Sindh Forum in Qasimabad here said that by tabling the bill, MQM had tried to fan parochialism.
Punhal Sario of Sindh Hari Porhiyat Council chaired the meeting. Speakers included Jabbar Bhatti, Asghar Leghari, Rizwan Abbasi and Javed Soz Halai, The federating units, they said, had their own history, language and culture, and Sindh had a civilisation spread over thousands of years.
JSQM: Bashir Khan Qureshi, chairman of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), warned the MQM against what he called its plan to divide Sindh by moving the 20th Amendment bill in the assembly and said that responsibility for the consequences of such a move would rest on MQM.
He was speaking at a news conference in Qasimabad on Monday.
“We will resist those who are planning to divide Sindh,” he said. “Through the slogan for new provinces, a plot is being hatched to bifurcate Sindh.”
Mr Qureshi accused the People’s Party of conspiring to destroy Sindh.
He urged transporters and traders across Sindh to make the Jan 28 strike a success.
He said if the bill was not withdrawn, pressure would be exerted on the government through sit-ins and blocking of highways.He took exception to the MQM’s stand that provincial boundaries were not sacred. “Not only the boundaries of Sindh butevery inch of it is sacrosanct for us and we will lay down our lives to protect it.”
The JSQM chairman said the Muttahida was trying to drive a wedge between Sindhi- and Urdu-speaking people.
He supported the demand for Seraiki province, urging legislators from the Seraiki belt to table a resolution in the PunjabAssembly. He, however, added that MQM had no mandate to table any such bill.
PALIJO: Ayaz Latif Palijo, President of Awami Tehrik, said the MQM had made a “frontal attack” on the unity and autonomy of federating units by tabling the bill for provinces in the National Assembly.
Speaking at a meeting of the general council of his party, he said PPP had betrayed Sindh by supporting the bill.
He warned elements “dreaming about division of Sindh of grave consequences”.
JALAL SHAH: Sindh United Party president and chief of the Save Sindh Committee, Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah, accused the People’s Party of supporting division of provinces to “appease its coalition partner”.
He said a notification had asked police stations in Sindh to register FIRs in Urdu instead of Sindhi. Condemning the notification, he said it was an attack on Sindhi language.
“Even during British rule, FIRs were written in Sindhi.”