The Sindh Assembly on Monday voted to a resolution to unban students' unions, observing that the restraint imposed during Gen Zia-ul-Haq era created social polarisations on sectarian and ethnic grounds.
A resolution, which PPP's lady lawmaker, Nida Khuhro had tabled, seeking unbanning the students unions at the province learning institutions received votes from both side of the house. "Thus, Sindh will become the first province to unban students' unions," Sindh Information Minister, Saeed Ghani told the house while debating the move.
He observed that the ban on the students unions left the society to divide into fractions on ethnic and sectarian grounds, as the academic institutions stopped producing political minds to play their role on the national levels.
"Today people don't know what left or right politics is about," he said, adding that the government is going to form farmers unions also to let the other provinces follow suit.
PTI's Khurrum Sher Zaman Khan said that the provincial governments are responsible after the 18th Constitutional Amendment to unban the students unions and extended his support to the resolution.
He said that the government should have lifted the ban from these unions 10 years back.
MQM's Muhammad Hussain said that the unbanning should have taken place after Gen Zia-ul-Haq era, as the political governments lost 31 years to revive the students unions. He said that students' unions produce leadership.
"There is a big role of students' organisations in the country's politics," Nida Khuhro, the mover, said that the country's reputed politicians have been associated with the students' organisations. The resolution says that the vandalism impression tagged to the students' unions is wrong. Unions are the source of ensuring basic rights.
Sindh Human Settlement Minister, Ghulam Murtaza Baloch said, while replying to queries placed by the legislators during the assembly's questions and answers session, that the city has 575 slump localities.
He said that the government has notified some 479 such localities with 32,000 units have been leased in the city.
The Sindh Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Mukesh Kumar Chawla claimed that the streets crimes have decreased, saying that 13,000 vehicles have been stolen over the past 10 months with 31,000 mobile handsets and 31 people killed by criminals on resistance.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019