PPP is destroying economy through lockdown to weaken federation, PTI claims.

Byline: Imran Ayub

KARACHI -- While the Sindh government has expressed its concerns over recent increase in coronavirus cases and hinted at re-imposing tight restrictions to contain the spread, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leaders in Sindh have warned that they could take to the streets if the PPP-led administration in the province does not completely reopen regular activities and businesses across Sindh to ease problems of the common man.

The Sindh leadership of the PTI, which is the key opposition party in the province, reiterated its stance on the lockdown on Thursday and demanded reopening of normal business activities with all due precautionary measures and guidelines advised by health experts.

The PTI leaders claimed that the Sindh government was focusing more on 'spreading fear' instead of taking measures to accommodate the growing number of patients and implementing the standard operating procedures (SOPs).

'We strongly oppose the lockdown,' said PTI Karachi president Khurram Sher Zaman, member of the Sindh Assembly, at the party headquarters in the city called Insaf House.

'If the Sindh government still insists on its policy to keep people at home in the name of lockdown without providing them their basic needs, it should remember that the people would take to streets and we will support them. You have suspended public transport. You have banned the poor man's facility - pillion riding. What [will] a common man do for survival?'

Ride-hailing services

He also demanded that the Sindh government allow operation of ride-hailing services, which had been off the roads for more than two months leaving hundreds of thousands of people unemployed and people without having a decent transport facility.

Mr Zaman described the Sindh government's policy of lockdown as 'an attempt to weaken the federation'.

'We all know that Karachi is revenue engine of the country. It is our business capital. The Sindh government in the name of lockdown wants to hit the country's economy and weaken the federation only to bring bad name to the federal...