THATTA, Oct 21: Awami Tehreek (AT) staged a big public meeting near Thatta Press Club on Sunday to mobilise the masses against the Sindh People’s Local Government Act, 2012.

AT chief Ayaz Latif Palijo spoke at the rally which was attended by members and supporters of its different wings, including Sindhyani Tehreek and Hindu Sujaaq Tehreek, besides a large number of AT activists.

Mr Palijo told the gathering that Sindh was passing through the most crucial phase in the history of the subcontinent as it was facing dismemberment by virtue of the newly introduced law. He asked the people of Sindh to join in the peaceful struggle launched by the Sindh Bachayo Committee (SBC) in order to wage a vigorous battle to defend the province and safeguard the legitimate rights of its people.

Mr Palijo severely criticised the Pakistan People’s Party for “betraying the political forces which had always been helping it to reach the power corridors,” and observed that the party’s so called policy of reconciliation had put Sindh’s integrity at stake while the political expediency during its tenure has earned the country a bad name.

He said that vested interests at the behest of PPP leadership were hatching conspiracies to erode unity of nationalist parties to sabotage the SBC movement.

He appealed to the media, civil society and activists of all political, social and religious parties and groups to raise their voice against the new LG law, state atrocities on nationalists for resisting anti-Sindh conspiracies and PPP’s policies.

“This huge meeting is a charge-sheet against the PPP,” he declared, and said that at the recent public meeting organised by the government in Hyderabad, none of the top PPP leaders including former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah could provide a satisfactory reply to the questions raised by nationalists with regard to the SPLGA and its implications. Nor were they able to justify increasing loadshedding, terrorism, unemployment, water shortage, corruption and other pressing problems being faced by the common man, he added.

He warned the Shirazi brothers, who have recently rejoined the PPP, that the party had lost its credibility and its days had been numbered. “This has compelled the party to drum up support of its long time rivals and feudal lords,” he said. He accused PPP leaders of plundering the national exchequer and Rehman Malik of transferring huge amounts of his party colleagues’ looted money to foreign banks.

Mr Palijo also declared rejection of the Zulfikarabad project and said it was part of the US agenda of bringing anti-Pakistan forces to its territory in order to effectively protect West’s interests. The project, he said, was bound to turn Sindhis into a minority within their own province.

Mazhar Rahujo, Naheed Jogi, Comrade Juman Sammoon, Anwar Soomro, Dada Qadir Ranto and others also spoke.

Our Larkana correspondent adds: Activists of Sindh United Party (SUP) took out a procession from the airport road to the press club here on Sunday in protest against the Sindh People’s Local Government Act-2012.

Central leader of the SUP Syed Zain led the protest which was later joined by leaders of other political parties opposing the act.

Carrying banners and placards, the protesters were chanting slogans against the law.

Addressing the protesters, Zain Shah said continuous protests, demonstrations and sit-ins against the act had proved that the PPP had acted against its mandate. The degree of unrest among the masses was enough to believe that people had withdrawn their mandate from the PPP. Its (PPP) leaders had confined themselves to their houses to evade the people’s wrath, he said.

With the passage of this bill, he said, the PPP was feeling itself isolated because no political party was ready to go along with it.

Meanwhile, writers, intellectuals, poets and short story writers also demonstrated outside the press club in protest against the local government act.

They condemned registering cases against poetess Mariyam Majeedi and Ayaz Amar Shaikh who had participated in an anti-SPLGA-2012 protest.

They said the cases spoke of narrow-mindedness of the rulers who were afraid of the voice of intellectuals against what they called a ‘black law’ devised to divide Sindh administratively. Sindhi Adabi Sangat’s central joint secretary Mushtaque Bukkhari and coordination secretary Malhar Sindhi led the demonstration. Chanting slogans against the law, they called for repeal of the law, saying that protests would continue till its withdrawal.

Those who participated in the demo include Saeed Memon, Aziz Mangi, Prof Ghulam Hussain Katpar, Nisar Shaheen, Adal Sindhi, comrade Karim Baloch, Bhao Dur Muhammed Buriro, Prof Manzoor Chajiro and Jeeal Oad.