HYDERABAD, Jan 15: The president of the Sindh chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party, Syed Qaim Ali Shah said on Tuesday that the Arbabs and the Chaudhries were bent upon getting the elections postponed but (they should remember) its consequences would be disastrous.

Mr Shah demanded at a news conference at the Bhurgari House that the nazims’ powers should be put in suspension till the completion of election process.

The workers were pressurising the leadership to launch a protest movement against the government but the leadership did not want to aggravate the situation and increase hardships for people who were already suffering from unavailability of flour, price hike and many other problems, he said.

He said that the police had lodged thousands of false cases in different districts of the province against 570,000 accused and of them nominated only 15,000 accused to give carte blanche to the law enforcers to arrest anyone they wanted on the orders of their masters.

He said that how ironic it was that the very PPP activists whose leader had been murdered were being victimised. The rulers were only shedding crocodile tears, he remarked.

Mr Shah alleged that the cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act were being registered against party workers at the instigation of former ruling party nazims and former rulers.

He said the rulers were trying to depict PPP, which believed in the rule of law and constitution and whose supreme leaders had sacrificed their lives for the democracy, as a terrorist party.

Citing an example of victimisation, he said that a PPP leader from Thar Jamaluddin Rahimoon was booked in two cases, one in Thar and the other in Qasimabad and the FIRs showed that the offences at the two different places had been committed the same day. How was it possible for Rahimoon to be present in Thar and Qasimabad the same day, he asked.

He said that he had visited the ATC court where he found more than 5,000 party activists seeking pre-arrest bail. No less than 301 cases had been registered only in Hyderabad district against 92,000 people at the instigation of district administration. He said that he had talked to the chief minister on three occasions but still there was no letup in excesses against party activists.

He thanked lawyers for deciding to appear in courts as it would provide a great relief to the innocent people who had been implicated in false cases. The party was using all forums including human rights organisations, European Union, diplomatic channels as well as the superior judiciary to highlight the excesses unleashed against party activists, he said.

He said that even in jail PPP activists were not being provided facilities in accordance with the outdated jail manual while 400 activists had been put in solitary confinement in Hyderabad Central Jail.