Following the untimely death of Bashir Qureshi, 52, chairperson of the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) under mysterious circumstances, the province observed a shutter down and wheel jam strike on his party’s call. The Sindhi nationalist leader died of heart failure in the early hours of Saturday after having a meal at a private party. His party members alleged a conspiracy had been hatched against Bashir Qureshi and he was killed by poisoning. They have rejected the chemical examination report of viscera samples taken from Qureshi’s body during the postmortem in a government hospital. They accuse the provincial health department of forging the laboratory report as the health minister did not issue a letter required for sending the samples to a more trustworthy private hospital, the Agha Khan University Hospital. Qureshi’s death has become controversial as the cause of his death, whether natural or by something more sinister like poison, has yet to be ascertained. At present, many conspiracy theories are doing the rounds. The situation calls for a through investigation as per the demands of the JSQM’s leaders. Any delay might lead to a deterioration in the law and order situation in Sindh as Qureshi had a huge following and his party is the largest nationalist political outfit and one of the biggest pressure groups in the province, created after the demise of Jeay Sindh Tehreek’s founder and Sindh’s famous nationalist leader G M Syed in 1995. Bashir Qureshi joined the Jeay Sindh Student Federation (JSSF) in his youth and came to prominence in 1984. Later, he became chief of the JSQM in the late 1990s. Qureshi was one of the most revered nationalist Sindhi leaders after G M Syed. The mystery surrounding his death might trigger agitation in the province, whose majority harbours resentment against the Punjabis and Urdu speaking community over economic, cultural, linguistic and water issues since independence. Most Sindhi nationalists believe that they have been deprived of their due share in their homeland’s resources after Ayub Khan settled Punjabis in Sindh and allotted them barrage lands while the migrated Urdu speaking community, being better educated, grabbed jobs and economic opportunities and now dominates the bigger cities of Sindh, particularly Karachi, the country’s economic hub. Urdu as a medium of instruction replaced the Sindhi language after independence, while water flows of the Indus River, the province’s only fresh water resource, remain a contentious issue between Sindh and Punjab. The Sindh government should hold a judicial inquiry into the sensitive matter. The viscera samples can be re-examined at another laboratory and if the findings support the JSQM’s allegations, the government should proceed to serve the ends of justice, satisfying the agitated and aggrieved Sindhi nationalists. *