SUP terms JC report a case of ‘blindfolded justice’

Karachi
The Sindh United Party (SUP) has expressed its reservations over the recently-released findings of Judicial Commission pertaining to the 2013 general election, describing the report to be a labour of “blindfolded justice”.
A meeting of the SUP’s central executive committee led by party chief Jalal Mehmood Shah was held on Wednesday at the Haider Manzil.
Talking to the media after the meeting, Shah said there was a lot of evidence suggesting that rigging took place in the election and people’s mandate in Sindh and Balochistan was ambushed. “But unfortunately the Judicial Commission kept mum over the murder of democracy in two provinces as a result of the so-called culture of ‘reconciliation’.”
Declaring that the SUP would fully participate and contest the local government elections, the SUP’s central executive committee has constituted a parliamentary board to be headed by Sayed Zain Shah, with Roshan Buriro and Ameer Ali Thebo as its members, to prepare electioneering strategies.
The party leadership was of the view that massive irregularities had taken place in delimitation of constituencies while voters’ lists had not been displayed in most of the areas, and hence, demanded an extension in the deadline so voters’ lists get rectified before the polls.
On the subject of monsoon flooding in the province, the party squarely held the government responsible for the devastation. “The Pakistan People’s Party has been in power since 2008. The super flood in 2010 and flash floods in 2011 destroyed crops and other sectors of economy besides displacing hundreds of thousands of people but the corrupt and inapt government did not take pre-emptive measures to safeguard citizens from natural disasters,” read a statement issued after the executive committee’s meeting. “This is due to corruption by the rulers who keep plundering national resources and international donations instead of diverting it towards planning and taking concrete measures.”
It was said that billions of rupees were allocated very year to the provincial irrigation department for strengthening river banks and other projects but the entire budget was usurped by corrupt officials who did not even spare international charity.
A news report which had disclosed that dozens of ambulances donated during the 2010-2011 floods by international agencies had been recovered from a house during a raid in Nawabshah.
It was said that the government had failed to activate the Provincial Disaster Management Authority which had its office from a rented bungalow in a posh area of Karachi and wasted hundreds of millions of rupees on salaries.
“The provincial authority in turn has failed to establish district disaster management authorities, mandatory under law.”
The party meeting also took serous note of a media report about National Accountability Bureau and its failure to recover Rs15 billion out of the total Rs285 billion in the possession of influential persons who were allegedly involved in corruption.
The case is currently being heard in the Supreme Court where it transpired that the bureau, which allowed 75 percent exemption to the corrupt influential persons and fixed a target of recovering Rs15 billion. But even that amount has not been recovered. “The NAB performance is contrary to the expectations and seems to be the result of so-called reconciliation,” the members said.
The SUP leaders present at the meeting also condemned extra-judicial killing of Raja Dahar, a leader of Jeay Sindh Quami Mahaz (JSQM), who was allegedly kidnapped in Khairpur and his body was later found in Nooriabad. “Nationalist workers and leaders have been eliminated by the secret agencies and the assassination of Raja Dahar too is the same case,” said SUP members while demanding from the government and the Supreme Court to hold judicial inquiry into the murder.