Daily Times

KARACHI: Pasban Pakistan President Altaf Shakoor has said that those proclaiming themselves as the champions of Karachi rights should show their seriousness.

“Why the head of the Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Dr Farooq Sattar, remained silent at a parliamentary committee meeting?” he asked, adding that he (Sattar) was present but he did not raise the issues related to Karachi or press the demand of fairness in the initial census results.

He said this was a betrayal of the Karachi rights.

Shakoor said these people had so far paid only lip service to Karachi and its issues. He said the so-called champions of Karachi rights had already became billionaires but Karachi was still denied water, sanitation public transport and other civic facilities, which was a sheer injustice to the people of the mega city.

Shakoor said that a fair distribution of national resources was the prerequisite of social justice. He regretted “useless exercise” of the National Assembly parliamentary committee in which it was decided to keep the seats of assembly intact at 272.

“What is the utility of holding the new census when the national resources are not being distributed amongst the provinces as per its results,” he questioned.

“The population of Karachi was deliberately shown less than the actual population of the mega city, which is a grave injustice to the engine of national economy.”

He said that adjustment of few seats in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan and Islamabad would not serve the purpose of fair and just distribution of the national resources.

He feared that some elements wanted to get the coming general elections delayed with such tactics. “If this happens it will sabotage the purpose for which the new census was conducted.” Shakoor asked all political parties in the National Assembly to stop befooling innocent voters and shun their “shameful indifference” to the plights of common man. He said it was the responsibility of rulers and political parties’ leadership to take practical steps for doling out social justice to the oppressed and deprived people of Pakistan.

Published in Daily Times, November 2^nd 2017.