KHAIRPUR, May 5: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has demanded that the president and the prime minister should declare ‘Latif Day’ as a national holiday and establish Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai libraries in the four provinces.

He reiterated his call for finding political solution to Waziristan and Balochistan issues. He said the people of Sindh were united on the issue of the province’s rights and rapped nationalist forces for criticising his party on the ground that it was holding Jashn-i-Latif for political gains.

In a telephonic address from London to a gathering at the Colonel Shah Hotel ground on Friday night, he said the so-called nationalist forces could see today that the people of Sindh were with him. He announced that the MQM would celebrate Jashn-i-Latif every year.

He said Shah Latif libraries should be set up so that every child could get to know his message. He maintained that Shah Latif’s message had been adopted by the West and today the message of peace was being promoted and people were expressing hatred for wars.

He said Shah Latif’s message was the manifesto of his party which wanted to eradicate feudalism.

Mr Hussain said the Jashn-i-Latif programme would prove to be the last nail in the coffin of the so-called nationalist groups and political parties which claimed to be champions of the cause of Sindh.

He reiterated that the MQM had taken a historic stand on issues of the Kalabagh dam, Balochistan and the NFC award.

He demanded autonomy for the provinces and due share of water to Sindh.

Mr Hussain said conspiracies were hatched in the past to pit Sindhi- and Urdu-speaking people against each other. But, he said, the Jashn-i-Latif showed that Sindhis, Punjabis, Pakhtuns and Urdu-speaking people were together and nobody could separate them from one another.

He called for eliminating the brutal custom of karo-kari for which, he said, his party would play its due role by launching a campaign against it in Sindh. He expressed the hope that the campaign would be successful.

He criticised religious parties’ leaders for issuing edicts, saying these leaders criticised women’s participation in politics but were sending their own women to assemblies which showed their double standards.

His speech was laced with more than 20 verses of Shah Latif which he had translated into Urdu.

Anwar Alam, in-charge of the MQM coordination committee, Dr Farooq Sattar, MQM’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, MPA Yousuf Muneer Shaikh, MPA Heer Ismail Sohu, Ashfaq Mangi, adviser to the Sindh chief minister, and Senator Dr Mohammad Ali Brohi also spoke on the occasion.