The News
23, October 2003

LONDON: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has said he is not against anybody and desires that Pakistan should be strong, stable and prosperous, but the country could not be strong at the cost of rights of smaller provinces.

Addressing a meeting of workers of Muttahida Badin zone on Tuesday night over telephone from London, he referred to injustices being done to Sindh. He said Sindh is being treated as a colony of the federal government and this province has been denied its essential rights; even subjected to deprivation of water as a result its land is getting barren and unproductive. Whatever little water is supplied is also stolen by Waderas and feudal lords who cut the bounds of canals and watercourses and divert it to their lands thus the small cultivators were subjected to suppression.

Altaf Hussain, enumerating a number of oppressive treatments to Sindh, said its lakhs of acres of cultivated lands are distributed among retired civil and military officers who do not belong to this province as awards. While the Sindhis are denied employment in the mills, industries and the multinational companies, where people brought from outside are provided jobs.

The Muttahida chief said despite the prevailing injustices and measures of economic suppression, Sindh is the only province, which contributes 70 per cent of revenue to the federal treasury and is playing a vital role in running the administration of the government.

He deplored that instead of providing economic package for ameliorating the existing conditions and just demands of Sindh, efforts are made to politically suppress their genuine demands.

He said he is not against Pakistan but what he wanted is Pakistan should be strong, stable and economically a prosperous country, where rights of every one, irrespective of smaller provinces, must be respected and guaranteed.

The existing policy having negative impacts must be changed and equal rights be granted to each province, he said.

Altaf specially referred to the Kalabagh Dam, Thal Canal or any other big projects and stressed the urgent need of taking all the provinces into confidence and no attempts be made to impose a decision.

He said a roundtable conference comprising public representatives of all the provinces and technical experts be called and their viewpoints heard with due consideration to create consensus before implementation of gigantic projects of national interest.

He said in the past too people of Sindh were deceived in the name of federation and "Roti, Kapra Aur Makan" and now again the people of Sindh are being pushed to extremism in the name "jihad".

Altaf advised his workers to remain always on guard against the conspiracies of vested interests and their agents, who would spread fictitious stories to mislead the innocent people.

He congratulated the newly elected office bearers and applauded the services of all workers.