HYDERABAD: Awami Workers Party (AWP) activists along with their family members held a rally in front of the local press club on Sunday demanding land reforms and distribution of more state lands to landless farmers.

Carrying banners, placards and party flags, they raised slogans against capitalism and feudal system as well as successive governments for pursuing imperialism and acting upon dictates of imperialist forces.

The participants played and sang revolutionary songs during the rally. A child drew public applause when he recited some couplets glorifying peasantry and labourers lot.Leaders and activists of the Awami Jamhori Party (AJP), Qaumi Awami Tehrik (QAT), Sindh Taraqqi-pasand Party (STP) and various civil society organisations also took part in the rally.

Sindh AWP chief Comrade Usman Baloch, general secretary Comrade Bukhshal Thallu, Yousuf Masti Khan, Aliya Mir Ali, Apa Saleha and Latif Leghari spoke at the rally.

Comrade Baloch said his party rejected the present system of governance in Pakistan and called for a vigorous struggle to replace it with the one based on equality.

He paid tribute to hari leader late Haider Bukhsh Jatoi who quit his government job to fight for the rights of farmers and the poor.

Criticising alleged racial discrimination, he claimed that the Baloch and Kuchhi people were being pushed to the wall despite the fact that they along with other communities were playing their due role in developing Karachi as a peaceful metropolitan city. `Today, the Kuchhi are being forced to quit that city and take shelter in Badin and other areas where boarding, lodging and food had been arranged for them by charities,` he observed.

Mr Thallu pointed out that a Baloch leader, Mama Qadeer, was leading a caravan that was on its way to Islamabad after no one heardgrievances of over 14,000 Baloch families whose near and dear ones had been missing for years and feared to have been eliminated or incarcerated for life by agencies.

He said the AWP had resolved to bring about a revolution in the country and ensure prosperity and rights for the poor masses.

Apa Saleha said feudal lords and capitalists had caused great damage to the country`s foundations by usurped rights of the common man, particularly farmers and labourers, who were made to live below the poverty line. One the other hand, she added, these oppressive forces had been multiplying their wealth ever since the country came into being.

Mr Masti Khan urged all nationalist forces to join hands with the AWP in getting the masses freed from the clutches of feudal lords and other oppressive forces.

Aliya Mir Ali said that there were separate education systems for the rich and the poor in the country. While all essential and extra academic facilities were being made available to the children of the rich, those from the poor families did not even have school buildings to get education.

Participants in the rally adopted several resolutions demanding restoration of the 1977 land reforms, a drastic reduction in the landholding limit, cancellation of land allotment to multi-national firms and military personnel and distribution of state lands to landless haris.

One of the resolutions demanded an immediate halt to privatisation of national assets, enterprises and institutions while another one called for raising farm workers` wage to a reasonable level besides granting them the right to trade unionism.

Yet another resolution demanded an end to military actions in Balochistan and recovery of all `missing` Baloch and other people.

The rally also called for ensuring adequate supply of water to tail-end lands, amendments to the Tenancy Act as per the aspirations of peasants and establishment of hari courts.