Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani has said nobody possesses the right to block the main roads of Karachi like University Road to register their protest.
He stated this at a press conference on Saturday in reply to a query concerning the ongoing protest sit-in of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) outside the Sindh Assembly against the controversial provincial local government law.
The JI, as its Plan B to further its agitation campaign against the recently enacted Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Act 2021, has started staging protests on Karachi’s main arteries. It recently staged a big rally of women supporters on University Road.
Ghani said the Sindh government had not objected to the JI’s agitation outside the Sindh Assembly, but blocking the main roads of the city under its protest drive was not acceptable. He said the blocking of such main roads meant that those championing the cause of the rights of the public ended up causing trouble in the lives of those very citizens.
He said the ongoing agitation by the opposition political parties against amendments to the local government law had been a tactic to divert the attention of the people from their genuine economic problems.
Ghani informed media persons that the Pakistan Peoples Party was organising protest rallies of the farmers in five districts of Sindh on Monday against a shortage of fertilizer that could cause a shortage of essential food items in the country.
The protest rallies would be staged in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Shaheed Benazirabad, Sukkur and Karachi, he said, adding that the rallies would commence at 2pm.
The protest rallies in Karachi will be staged from the West and Malir districts in Karachi, which will reach Kudadad Colony near the Mazar-e-Quaid via Sharea Faisal.
Ghani, who is also the PPP Karachi president, said leaders of his would address the participants of the rally after it reached its destination.
He recalled that the PPP was the only political party in the country that had recently organised countrywide protests against hikes in the prices of essential commodities, including petroleum products, and a shortage of natural gas due to incompetence shown by the federal government.
He said an unprecedented increase in the prices of essential products, including petrol and medicines, and a gas shortage in the country had become the most serious problems faced by the citizens of Pakistan.
Ghani remarked that scores of spokespersons of the federal government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had completely failed to acknowledge this most important economic problem of the country.
He said a large number of the lawmakers belonging to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf were willing to join the PPP, and their inclusion in the party was possible at any time.
To another question, he said the Sindh government would preferably take a decision to close the educational institutions in the province due to the alarming increase in the cases of coronavirus in view of the directions given by the National Command and Operation Centre for the purpose.
He said the coronavirus Task Force in Sindh had been strictly reviewing the Covid-19 situation in the province, and the healthcare institutions had not been facing any emergency due to an increase in the critically ill patients.