Protesters, holding sit-in against the controversial local bodies law outside the Sindh Assembly building on the call of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), on Thursday continued the protest for the sixth consecutive day.
Thousands of protesters showed unshakeable resolve despite the fact that JI Karachi chief Engr Hafiz Naeemur Rehman allowed the participants to leave the venue when heavy rains hit the venue of the sit-in last night.
On the sixth day of the protest, delegations of religious clerics, students, representatives of school owners association, ABAD and affectees of cooperative societies visited the sit-in to express solidarity with the protesters.
Addressing the sit-in, JI Sindh Ameer Muhammad Hussain Mehanti announced that the party has decided to spread the protest campaign across the Sindh province. He said that protests camps will be setup in all cities and town of the province on Friday and Sunday in this regard. He added that the campaign against the Sindh government will remain continue till the black law is repealed.
The JI Karachi Ameer Engr Hafiz Naeemur Rehman in his address unmasked the ruling regime in the province and said that the ministers belonging to the PPP were issuing misleading statement to cover up their corruption in development authorities.
He said that PPP leaders Agha Siraj Durrani and Saeed Ghani should have come forward on the media to prove the powers devolved to the local government setup.
He highlighted that the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) had been placed under the authority of the local government setup but the PPP took it away. He also highlighted the corruption in the development authorities and equated it to exploitation of the people in Sindh.
Those who accuse the JI of seeding hatred and ethnic based politics need to know that the PPP and the MQM have not spared any slot for this nefarious type of politics in the political arena of Karachi.
He further said that the JI has been holding the protest for the people belonging to all areas of the country. He added that Karachi is called mini Pakistan because people from all ethnic backgrounds live in this city. He said that the PPP should withdraw the law if it was serious and sincere to the megalopolis. He hold the PPP responsible for attempts to create a divide between Sindhi speaking and Mohajirs.
The JI leader said that the struggle will continue till the law was repealed because a mayor without any monetary or administrative powers would not be able to deliver.
He said that the PPP has ruined all institutions in the province, 49,000 public sector schools have been destroyed in the province. He said that from the chief minister to bureaucracy in the province, not even a single individual would like to get their children admitted in the schools.
Engr Naeem said that the struggle launched by the JI was to resolve the problems of people and the PPP should not expect a friendly opposition from the JI as it had enjoyed while dealing with the MQM. He added that contrary to the MQM, the JI has been opposing the politics of divide since day one.
On the occasion, he thanked the media workers for covering the sit-in and bearing hardships in line of their duty.
In his concluding remarks, the JI leader said that the JI’s Akbar Chitrali has already submitted a resolution in the National Assembly for a separate chapter in the constitution for local bodies and it will be a test case for all political parties, including the PPP, the MQM and the PTI to respond to the resolution.
