HYDERABAD, July 13: The Sindhiani Tehrik, women wing of the Awami Tehrik, on Friday accused the government of reviving the black custom of karo-kari and allowing chieftains and sardars to order killings of human beings under the custom.

A meeting of the Tehrik’s central committee presided over by Ms Nazeer Qureshi demanded that cases should be registered against the people who killed in the name of honour and they should be awarded exemplary punishment.

Ms Qureshi later said while briefing journalists at the press club that her organisation appealed to the superior judiciary to take suo motu notice of the gruesome murders taking place almost daily in Upper Sindh in the name of honour.

Women in Upper Sindh were being sold like cattle and they compelled to live under subhuman conditions, she said and added that the meeting had held the president, the MQM chief, Sindh governor, chief minister and adviser to CM on home department responsible for May 12 killings in Karachi.

She said that the meeting had also welcomed the decisions of multi-party conference in London, especially the one declaring the MQM as a terrorist organisation and the resolve not to enter into any political alliance with the party.

Ms Qureshi said that the Musharraf government had completely failed to solve people’s problems and control terrorism, lawlessness, price hike and unemployment. She urged all the democratic forces and people at large to unite on one platform and launch a consistent struggle against the imperialist forces, terrorists and military government.

She criticised the performance of government during the recent rains and floods in Sindh and Balochistan and expressed profound grief over the loss of life and property.

She accused the government, waderas and high officials of deliberately breaching the drains and wahs in Qambar-Shahdadkot and Dadu districts to save their own lands and demanded that the government should provide relief to the flood victims on a war footing.

The committee decided to organise a conference in Hyderabad on Sept 23 to hold elections for the central committee, she said.

STP: The Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party (STP) on Friday protested against the appointment of 41 reportedly belonging to Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in the culture department, which had 80 seats lying vacant.

In a statement issued to the press, the acting chairman of the party, Dr Abdul Hameed Memon, said that the appointment of MQM people in a clandestine manner was a robbery of the rights of Sindhi jobless youth.

The allocation of 50 per cent jobs for MQM was a flagrant violation of the constitution and the already settled formula of 60 per cent for rural and 40 per cent for urban areas, he said.

He criticised Tariq Aziz and said that he was not a viceroy of Sindh who took decisions about the province. Sindhis were under no obligation to accept his decisions, he added.

He slammed the chief minister for agreeing to grant 50 per cent jobs to MQM and alleged that the government had imposed ban only on appointment of Sindhis while it did not apply to the MQM.

BOOKED: The Jamshoro Police has lodged an FIR against four persons involved in encroachment on the lands of Sindh University.

The complaint was filed by a security guard of the University, Muhammad Ashraf Brohi at the Jamshoro police station about encroachment on land.