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Imran
criticises IDPs entry ban in Sindh
LAHORE - Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan has condemned the Sindh
government’s decision to deny entry to the IDPs into the province on
the pretext of registration before entry.
According to him, this was unconstitutional as citizens of Pakistan
cannot be denied entry into any part of their country, nor can they
be asked to register on entering another province.
In a statement issued here on Saturday, Imran Khan said that
thousands of IDPs were stranded at Kashmore while the Sindh
government, under pressure from coalition partner MQM, denied them
access to a part of their own country.
“It is shameful that the MQM is not ready to shoulder the
responsibility alongside its partner the PPP of the fallout from
this ill-timed and ill-planned military operation. Altaf Hussain’s
newly-discovered love for military operations in order to please his
foreign masters - in contrast to his earlier condemnation of the
military operation in Karachi in 1992 - is totally devoid not only
of any humanity, but also of principles,” he said.
The IDPs have lost their homes, their crops, their future, because
of the present government’s greed for US dollars and it is
unacceptable that the provincial leadership of Sindh now deny them
basic shelter and access to territory that is as much a part of
their country as it is of the people already living in Sindh. Imran
found it totally unacceptable that at a time of such human tragedy,
the response of the MQM-PPP coalition in Sindh was turning the
crisis into a potential ethnic conflict. He urged the present
leadership to immediately allow all IDPs their constitutional rights
as Pakistanis to move freely across this country with no barriers
created such as registration. He called on the government to
re-assess the rationale for the military operation - including the
untenable strategy of using heavy artillery and aerial bombardment
which is leaving countless innocent citizens dead in its wake,
alongside millions stranded in the war zone.
The Nation: May 24, 2009
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