KARACHI, Aug 2: Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza has rejected reports about existence of Taliban in Sindh, and said that there was not truth in reports about a Sindh cabinet decision to carry out “an operation against Taliban.

Talking to newsmen after attending a seminar on forestry here on Saturday, the minister said neither Taliban existed in Sindh nor was there any threat to the province from Talibanisation. “The Sindh cabinet has never decided to carry out an operation against them,” he categorically stated, adding that the cabinet had not even discussed the issue of Taliban.

The home minister also clarified his earlier statement about action against leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly Jam Madad Ali.

“I had only talked about the government’s intention to arrest criminals but Jam Madad Ali took it as expected action against him,” he said, making it clear that the government did not intend to institute cases against him or any other opposition member of the provincial assembly. Jam Madad Ali’s apprehensions and remarks that “Mirza is threatening me” are baseless, he said in reply to a question.

About the outcome of the recent operation against criminal gangs in Lyari, the home minister said that Lyari had become a centre of criminal activities because of decades of neglect of and unemployment. He was of the view that peace could be restored there only when development work was started and the jobless Lyariites were provided employment.

“The previous government treated the Lyari Town as a remote area and never paid due attention to its development which turned it into a centre of criminal activities.”

He said the present government had started a process of development in the town and was providing jobs to a large number of Lyariites.

Regarding the ongoing operation against dacoits and criminal elements in the interior of Sindh, Dr Mirza said that an influential feudal lord of Larkana had occupied the forests of Ketti Mumtaz and was harbouring dacoits and kidnappers.

The landlord had also been using these forests for illegal hunting and was allowing no one to passing through these lands, he said, adding that the criminals acting under his patronage had been looting those who would dare enter the forests.

Now the government had retrieved the Ketti Mumtaz forest lands and was building two roads across it to facilitate people’s access to the areas around them.

The home minister, who also holds the portfolio of forests, said that a number of feudal lords were involved in deforestation activities, and said that the government was taking strict action against all such elements.

In reply to a question, Dr Mirza said the government could not correct in 100 days the large number of wrongs done by the previous government over several years.

The minister said that the crime ratio in the province had registered a remarkable decline since the inception of the PPP-led government, and said that the media had also acknowledged the trend.—PPI