MQM-P reiterates demand for separate province on 37th Foundation Day

Marking the party’s foundation day on Thursday, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) leaders in a public gathering accused the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led provincial government of meting out injustice to the people living in the urban areas of Sindh.

The MQM-P organised a rally to mark its 37th Foundation Day at the Nishtar Park where a large number of party workers and supporters were present. MQM-P leaders in their speeches said the party would continue its campaign for the rights of the urban Sindh, and reiterated their demand to conduct a fresh census in Karachi and create a new urban province in Sindh.

The party’s convener, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, said their ancestors had created the whole of Pakistan but Zulfikar Ali Bhutto halved the country. “Muhajir neighbourhoods were attacked as a punishment for standing with Fatima Jinnah,” he said, referring to the presidential election in Ayub era. He called for creating as many provinces as possible in the country in terms of population.

Siddiqui demanded that the government immediately announce a new census, allocate a budget for it and compile a transparent voters list in each constituency. Kunwar Naveed Jameel, MQM-P senior deputy convener, said that General Yahya Khan was making Karachi a separate province but the Muhajir elders preferred to stay with Sindh at that time. He accused the PPP’s provincial government of not providing drinking water to the residents of urban Sindh. “The Sindh government has occupied all the civic departments and entities for looting,” he alleged.

“Along with the provincial government, the federal government and institutions also complain that injustice has been done to the people of Karachi,” he said. “First, a biased quota system was implemented and then even according to the quota, jobs were not given to the urban residents.”

“It has never happened to the workers of any political party in Pakistan that happened to our workers,” said MQM-P senior leader Aamir Khan. “Have workers of any political party ever been extrajudicially killed?” he asked. “Did our youth ever take up arms in the mountains and hijack a plane?”

Discussing the recent victory of two seats from Sindh in the Senate polls, MQM-P leaders said that the party showed unity in its ranks and its MPAs spoiled all conspiracies. “We have won the Senate elections, and God willing, we will also win the upcoming local bodies polls and next general elections,” said Syed Wasim Akhtar, former Karachi mayor.

Faisal Subzwari, MQM-P’s newly elected senator, said industrialists and the sugar mafia had been representing the labourers and farmers across Pakistan. “If you want to see the representation of the common man in Parliament, look at the MQM-P,” he said.

Other leaders, including Khwaja Izharul Hasan, Abdul Haseeb Khan and others, said the population of Karachi along with other urban parts of Sindh was intentionally shown less in the census.

They said Karachi was the country’s only metropolitan city where a number of ill-plans and conspiracies had been made to plunder it and such plans had been increasing rapidly in the past few years.

The people getting government jobs through bribery, favouritism, violation of merit and injustice would be appointed across the country and resultantly, they would destroy the government institutions, the speakers said.