LARKANA: Sindh Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) general secretary Rashid Mehmood Soomro has tendered his resignation after expressing his reservations over party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s visit to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) headquarters, the Nine Zero, in Karachi on Tuesday.

The JUI-F chief visited the ‘90’ to persuade the MQM to withdraw the resignations of legislators in the Senate, National Assembly and Sindh Assembly after he was given the task by the federal government.

Maulana Soomro told Dawn said that he intended to step down as the Sindh JUI-F general secretary over the issue of Maulana Rehman’s visit to the MQM headquarters. Sources close to Maulana Soomro also confirmed that his resignation had been sent to the central leadership by a courier service.

The sources said that the JUI-F chief had spoken to Maulana Soomro by phone in the wake of his decision to accept the task of mediation and asked him to come to Islamabad. A statement issued by Larkana JUI-F spokesman Hameedullah Siyal on Tuesday said that Mr Soomro advised the party chief not to visit the MQM headquarters, the sources said.

The sources said that most senior JUI-F activists in the province believed that the MQM was not only pursuing an anti-Sindh policy but also had connections with anti-state agencies. They said that Maulana Rehman’s visit to the ‘90’ had hurt feelings of Sindhis.

The sources observed that the JUI-F chief kept its Sindh chapter in dark about the visit and did not take it into confidence.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that the Sindh JUI-F shoora (committee of advisers) had convened its meeting in Sukkur on Aug 22 to discuss the situation arising out of Maulana Soomro’s resignation.

Maulana Soomro was elected general secretary of the party’s Sindh chapter on Jan 11 to succeed his father Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro, who was assassinated in a mosque adjacent to his seminary in Sukkur on Nov 29 last year.

Resignations a pressure tactic: SUP

SHIKARPUR: Sindh United Party (SUP) general secretary Syed Zain Shah has said that by tendering its legislators’ resignations from the three elected houses, the MQM wanted to pressure the federal government and the institution of armed forces to stop the ongoing operation against terrorists, criminals and corrupt elements in Sindh.

Speaking to the media after a meeting of the SUP’s Larkana division leadership at the residence of a central leader, Agha Qamar Mushwani, late on Monday evening, Mr Shah dubbed the PPP and MQM as ‘twins’ and said none of them could not survive without the other. “Both the parties are power hungry and their survival depends on their being in power,” he claimed, and alleged that they were desperately struggling to continue with their practice of plundering the exchequer.

The SUP leader said that the resignations of MQM legislators was a tactic to force the federal government to support it in its efforts to save the large number of arrested party activists allegedly involved in criminal activities and ensure that no more party leaders or activists were arrested.

He was of the view that the MQM would withdraw the resignations as it could not afford losing the privileges being enjoyed by the presence of its legislators in the three houses.

‘Four assemblies demand action against Altaf’

HYDERABAD: Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party (STP) leaders Jam Fatah Samejo, Dr Abdul Hameed Memon, Altaf Jaskani and others have said that the murderous attack on MQM MNA Rasheed Godil on Tuesday indicates that conspiracies are being hatched against the Karachi operation by the same forces which had been responsible for similar attacks in the past. These forces had let loose a reign of terror, they recalled.

In a statement issued hours after the attack in Karachi that left Mr Godil critically wounded, the STP leaders said that the organisation behind the Tuesday attack was responsible for such acts of terrorism in Karachi in the past. The same organisation wanted to destroy peace in Sindh and the country for its nefarious designs, they added.

“On the one hand, the government is forced to establish contact with the MQM chief in London and the party’s headquarters ‘90’, and on the other, the city is witnessing such incidents again,” they observed.

They said that four provincial assemblies had adopted resolutions against the MQM chief and demanded action against him under the relevant provisions of the constitution. They alleged that the party’s legislators had tendered their resignations to sabotage the Karachi operation.

“The resignations should be accepted without any delay and the Zarb-i-Azb and Karachi operations should continue without any expediency,” they said.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2015

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