It’s up to Dr Ebad to resign or not: Sattar

KARACHI: It is up to Dr Ishratul Ebad, the Governor of Sindh to resign from his post or not, said leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement Dr Farooq Sattar while speaking in Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Saath on Monday.
He stated that the MQM had distanced with Dr Ebad and, keeping in mind his long affiliation with the MQM, wanted he should return to his companions.Dr Farooq said the party had the feeling that the governor had become a silent spectator.
He said the federal government would not post any MQM man as the next governor of Sindh province.Anyhow, he said, the party completed the formality of demanding a resignation from the governor. The party does not want that the governor should hold just a symbolic post. There were always the heckling that a man from the party was governor and the party keeps making complaints of discrimination and injustice.
Farooq Sattar said the party wanted that the governor should have a role in reducing the difficult situation the party was facing. He mentioned that localities were attacked and there was massacre during the tenure of the PPP.
Sattar said the party always wanted that the governor’s office should remain impartial. He also mentioned that Dr Ebad had become the governor of Sindh after resigning form basic membership of the party but the MQM kept supporting him even after that.
Referring to the recent by-election, Farooq Sattar said the people conveyed their confidence in and support to the MQM by casting 95,000 votes. It was assertion of the people that they would not compromise against their unity and their future.
Dr Farooq Sattar emphasised that Quaid-e-Tehreek Altaf Husain is the only and undisputed leader of the MQM. He said it was the responsibility of the Sindh governor to have said something after a lower-rank police officer labelled the MQM as Indian agent.
The governor should have investigated how could a low-rank cop levelled the allegations on whose instigation.
There could

no more be a nauseating and baseless blame on the MQM than calling it agent of the anti-Pakistan Indian intelligence agency RAW. He mentioned that the former army chief General Pervez Musharraf had said that the scrutiny of agencies did not find any link of the MQM with Raw.
Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon, when asked about severe scarcity of water in Karachi, argued that the city had a longstanding water issue. He said Karachi needs 1,000 million gallons of water, while only half of the requirement was being fulfilled. He said the important project ‘Scheme-4’ would begin from the current month. He said that land was the basic prerequisite for the project was 13,500 acres of land, which had already been provided while funds for the Scheme-4 is the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments. He informed that the Sindh government has sanctioned the funds while the federal government has not yet done so. He stated that funds were not the problem for the scheme. Referring to theft of water the minister asserted it was going on in connivance with employees of the Water Board.
In response to a query, Memon said not a single permission for water hydrant was issued during his tenure.Senior analyst Ahmad Rasheed said there are many suspicions and blemishes in Seymour Hersh’s story about Osama Ben Laden. He said how could there be any need for Abbottabad Operation if Pakistan had to handover Osama Bin Laden to the US. Pakistan could have done it very silently. It was interesting, he pointed out, why there were no guards from the army if Osama was kept in Abbottabad by the Inter-Services Intelligence.
Presenting his analysis Shahzeb Khanzada said there were a number of assumptions regarding Osama Ben Laden’s death. But people still wait eagerly to know the truth.
Khanzadaa said the recent report of the American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claims that the then army chief General Pervez Kayani and the ISI chief General Pasha had knowledge about Osama and the American operation to kill him. He said Osama was in the custody of Pakistani army since 2006 and expenses for his look after were borne by the Saudi government. The American came to know about Osama’s presence in Pakistan in August 2010 when a former intelligence officer informed the then Station Chief Jonathan Bank about Osama’s presence in Abbottabad and demanded payment of the amount of $25 million as reward for providing information. The White House, however, rejected Seymour Hersh’s report, saying Pakistani authorities were not informed about the Abbottabad Operation. They said only a few high officials of the United States knew about it.