HYDERABAD, Oct 4: The chief of the Siraikistan Qaumi Movement (SQM), Hameed Asghar Shaheen, has demanded complete provincial autonomy for all the federating units and stressed the need for raising the leadership from the middle class.

Addressing at a news conference with Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party leaders Hote Khan Gadhi, Nandlal Mahli and Muzaffar Kalhoro at the press club here on Tuesday, he said that elections should be held for a new constituent assembly and the powers of the federation should be clearly defined.

He said that the oppressed people would never be able to emancipate themselves from the fetters of slavery until they got rid of the feudal leadership.

He expressed his disappointment in the federalist parties and said he believed they could not do anything for the oppressed people. The parliamentary politics and assemblies had proved to be spineless, he said.

He flayed Waderas, feudal lords and Sardars who had their own selfish ends to achieve often at the cost of people they represented. It was the very reason why his party said a good-bye to the PONM, which too had Khans and Sardars in its ranks.

Mr Shaheen claimed that some provinces were trying to get control of some areas of the Seraiki belt.

CPP: The Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP), Sindh chapter, has demanded that the plan to establish twin cities on the islands near the Port Qasim should be handed over to the Sindh government.

A two-day meeting of the CPP’s provincial committee, which concluded on Wednesday, expressed grief over the murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti and urged people to launch a joint struggle for registering an FIR against the rulers.

The meeting called upon the government to ensure supply of water to the tail-end growers of Khairpur district according to the order of the Sindh High Court and direct the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to start purchasing cotton at the rate of Rs1,800 per 40kg.

The committee urged the government to stop work on the construction of all the mega projects in Sindh and Balochistan unless people of the two provinces gave their consent. The projects should be considered a property of the provinces and the locals should be provided jobs in them, it said.

The meeting demanded that the government make public the whereabouts of all the political activists picked up by the law enforcement agencies, stop privatisation of national entities, abolish the Essential Services Act and grant the workers in all the organizations the right to form trade unions.

The committee demanded that the government declare Hyderabad, Badin, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Thatta districts as calamity-hit, waive instalments of the outstanding loans for the current year and rehabilitate the rain-hit people like earthquake victims.

KOTRI BRIDGE: MNA Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur demanded on Wednesday that the prime minister ordered a high-level inquiry into causes leading to the dilapidation of the Kotri Bridge which a couple of days had developed a large crater.

Mr Talpur who is a leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), demanded that the government award exemplary punishment to the persons responsible for the crime and order a new bridge constructed on the River Indus to connect Hyderabad and Kotri.

He said in a faxed statement that he had drawn the attention of the railway authorities and the federal government to the bridge and advised banning heavy traffic but nobody took any notice.

He warned that the century-old bridge, which was extremely important from the defence point of view, could collapse any moment.