Either prove charges of illegal appointments in Sindh police or apologise, home minister tells PTI chief

Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Khan Siyal has challenged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan’s allegation, asking him to prove that appointments in the Sindh police were made on the basis of bribery.

“Imran Khan should prove his allegation or otherwise he should apologise. I will retire from parliamentary politics if Imran Khan is able to prove his allegation. AD Khowaja [incumbent Sindh police chief] should also inform whether he has got this appointment after spending money,” he said on the fourth day of the ongoing debate on the provincial budget in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday.

The home minister said that when the PPP had come into power, incidents of extortion of money through the distribution of “extortion chits (to the traders)” and the dead bodies found stuffed in gunny bags had been rife in the province. He said the PPP’s Sindh government was credited with appointing honest police officials to run the police force.

He said appointments in the provincial police force had been made on the basis of merit. “We have restored peace in the entire province. The targeted operation in Karachi was launched owing to the efforts of the army chief and the Sindh government. The federation didn’t pay a single penny under the head of the Karachi operation.”

Sorath Thebo, opposition lawmaker of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz), said that the performance of the PPP government was quite evident from the fact that people were being made to consume water polluted with effluents.

She said the government had not been spending the due share of funds on development projects despite the fact that the province had been getting its ample share from the federal divisible pool under the National Finance Commission’s award. Thebo added that patients of hepatitis had not been getting life-saving medicines in the province.

Opposition MPA belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement Zubair Ahmed Khan said that sentiments of hatred had been spreading fast in the province owing to the unfair attitude of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. “We should be told what sin the Mohajirs are being punished for,” he said.

He said that people in big cities of the province, including Karachi and Hyderabad, had been without basic needs of life. “The way discrimination and prejudice is being meted out, it seems that the Sindh government has been in a haste to create a new province.”

He said that development schemes envisaged under the community development programme were being materialised only on the instructions of influential quarters in the province while ignoring the basic problems of the people.

He added that the commissioner and the deputy commissioner posted in his home city Hyderabad were helpless as they needed directives from “the unseen and unnamed influential quarters” to implement the proposed development schemes under the community development programme.

He said that settlements of the Hyderabad city inhabited by Mohajir communities had been willfully deprived of basic necessities of life. Opposition legislator of the Pakistan Muslim League-Functional Nusrat Seher Abbasi said the Sindh government had hoodwinked the masses through its new annual budget, as up to 80 per cent of new development schemes had been included in the budget while terming them current schemes.

She alleged that the government had committed corruption in installing solar-powered lights as a solar lights available in the market for Rs40,000 had been procured by the government at the exorbitant rate of Rs250,000.

She further alleged that corruption to the tune of Rs240 million had been committed in upgrading girls’ schools in the province. She said appointments had been made in the excise department on a political basis. The opposition lawmaker announced that she would move the court against the corrupt practices of the government. She said the CM had proved through his acts that he was the provincial chief executive only for the PPP.

Karachi population

While taking part in the general discussion on the budget, PPP MPA Ghulam Qadir Chandio referred to the questions raised by legislators belonging to the MQM regarding a “smaller population” of Karachi as shown in the recently held population census.

“I used to say that they continued with their killing spree on a life-long basis, and they have now been complaining about a wrong counting of the population of Karachi.” On a protest by lawmakers belonging to the MQM and other opposition parties, Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza, who was chairing the session, ordered expunging these remarks from the record of proceedings of the provincial assembly.