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Pak: PM backs refugees amid Sindh strikes
[ADN Kronos] By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani on Monday moved to play down concern about the millions of people displaced by the government's offensive against the Taliban in the country's northwest. He stressed that the people from Swat and the surrounding Malakand division are guests of the entire country and can go where ever they want.Nearly 2.4 million people have registered with provincial authorities after fleeing the anti-Taliban military offensive this month in northwest Pakistan, the United Nations and government officials said on Monday. Fear overwhelmed sympathy for the victims in the province of Sindh as strikes were held for the second day in Karachi and elsewhere to protest against the arrival of displaced people from Swat and Malakand. Violence erupted in parts of the province on Sunday. The residence of a Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party leader in Kotri, near Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, was llate on Sunday attacked with bomb which killed his nephew. ANP strongly backs aid for displaced people. "We are justified in our strike call because the arrival of people from North West Frontier People has increased the presence of Taliban in Sindh," a spokesman for the Sindh political movement, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM), told Adnkronos International (AKI) by telephone. "We have information that there is a plan to shift Al-Qaeda's base to Sindh. We will not let this happen." JSQM opposes the influx of ethnic Pashtuns fleeing a military offensive in the three northwest districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir. One of the coalition partners in the government, the Muttahida Quami Movement (or United National Movement) on Sunday supported the strike call given by JSQM and another faction made up of Sindh nationalist parties. But after Sindh chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah held a press conference on Sunday to say that displaced people will not be settled in the urban centres but in camps outside the cities, MQM backed out from the strike on Monday. However, due to support from JSQM and other parties' participation, the strike was partially successful. Sources in the provincial government say that many district police have made clear to the provincial government that allowing displaced people into Sindh province could cause serious law and order issues and terrorisim in the province. The police believe they should either not be allowed in the province or be kept in camps under strict surveillance. According to an estimate refugees numbers have crossed the figure of 2.9 million. The newly-displaced join more than 550,000 others who fled similar battles last year and rights groups and the UN have warned that it is Pakistan's biggest movement of people since partition from India in 1947. The local refugee camps in North West Frontier Province are crowded beyond capacity and most of the refugees are living with their relatives in the province. Karachi is the largest city of the country where about 1.5 million Pashtun, mostly labourers, live. It is said to be the biggest Pashtun city in the world where Pashtun's population is bigger than Peshawar in Pakistan and Jalalabad and Kabul in Afghanistan. Posted by: Fred 2009-05-26 |
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