SSC calls for strike today

The Save Sindh Committee (SSC) on Friday announced a general strike across Sindh for today (Saturday) against the 20th amendment bill tabled by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and appealed to the masses to support the strike call. While talking to the media outside the Karachi Press Club on Friday, SSC Convener Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah and senior vice president Shah Muhammad Shah said that people of Sindh will prove on January 28 that they are not with the “dissident rulers” of Sindh. Earlier, the SSC office bearers had called on National People’s Party (NPP) Chairman Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi and former Sindh chief minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi, appealing for their help to make the strike successful in the province. They also met with Karachi Transport Ittehad (KTI) President Irshad Bukhari and asked him to keep public transport away from roads. Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Chairman Bashir Qureshi said that MQM’s 20th amendment bill was a conspiracy against the people of Sindh. “We are appealing to people belonging to every linguistic group to shut down their business in support of the general strike, as only then can we pressurise the government and the MQM into withdrawing the amendment,” he said. Qureshi was of the view that nobody should dream that they can break Sindh having a history of 5,000 years. “The Urdu-speaking people should ask the MQM that why the party is interested in breaking up Sindh,” he added. On January 17, the MQM had tabled the 20th constitutional amendment bill in the National Assembly seeking the creation of Seraiki province in Punjab and the Hazara province in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.