HYDERABAD: Activists of the Jeay Sindh Mahaz (JSM) on Sunday held a sit-in on Hyderabad bypass near Waduwah against influx of illegal immigrants and internally displaces persons (IDPs) and attacks on religious places in Sindh.

Several Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) leaders joined in the protest when JSM activists marched up to the local press club.

The JSM activists led by the party chief, Riaz Chandio, assembled at Naseem Nagar Chowk, in Qasimabad carrying banners inscribed with slogans against influx of illegal immigrants and IDPs in Sindh. They staged a sit-in on the by-pass where Mr Chandio addressed them. He accused the PPP and PML-N governments at the centre of helping Afghans, Banglais,

Burmese and other illegal immigrants settle in Sindh and also not checking influx of IDPs in the province.

He also accused the PPP government in Sindh of being busy selling away Sindh. He said the PPP and MQM should fulfil their responsibility of forcing out illegal immigrants and other outsiders from Sindh.

Common cause brings JSM, JSQM closer

Mr Chandio claimed that mosques, temples and churches in the province were being attacked by terrorists fleeing Afghanistan and the troubled tribal areas and sneaking into Sindh under the garb of IDPs.

He announced that JSM would participate in the June 21 sit-in by JSQM against the alleged killing of its activists, Maqsood Qureshi and Salman Wadho.

Later, senior nationalist leader Hussain Bukhsh Thebo, JSQM senior vice chairman Dr Niaz Kalani, Sindh Porhiyat Council president Punhal Sario and others joined in the JSM march up to the local press club.

Dr Kalani called for a ‘social boycott’ of Pakhtuns in order to force them out of the province.

He said Sindh was being turned into a colony and its resources were being usurped.

JSQM protest

JSQM leaders and supporters along with civil society activists staged a token hunger strike outside the local press club on Sunday in protest against non-compliance of a court order asking the police to register murder FIR of Maqsood Qureshi and Salman Wadho, whose charred bodies were found in a burnt out car near Bhiriya Road town of Naushahro Feroze district a couple of months back.

The party wants registration of FIRs against against the state and its intelligence agencies. It also insists on a similar FIR in the case of alleged murder of its chairman, Bashir Qureshi.

At the Sunday protest, they participants raised slogans against the agencies and condemned ‘forced disappearance’ and ‘killing’ of Sindhi and Baloch nationalists.

The protest was led by Akash Mallah, Faisal Mastoi, Khalid Jamali, Zulfiqar Sindhi and Punhal Sario.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2014