LARKANA: Several hundred activists and supporters of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) took part in a rally taken out on Tuesday against what the party described as a deceitful drive launched by the anti-corruption establishment (ACE), bad governance, unjustifiably excessive power loadshedding and detection bills and government functionaries` failure to look into people`s problems.

The rally was led by Larkana district JUI-F chief Maulana Nasir Soomro, who is also the elder brother of the party`s Sindh general secretary Maulana Rashid Soomro. The protesters, raising slogans against the Sindh government and corrupt elements within it, started their march from Jamia Islamia on Dodai Road and converged on the DC House, where they held a sit-in for several hours. They pitched tents in the middle of the thoroughfare causing closure of VIP Road and all arteries leading to it.

Speaking to the participants, Maulana Soomro, Muhabbat Khuhro and other JUI-F leaders said that bad governance in the provincehad seriously af fected performance of all departments and multiplied people`s miseries.

They observed that the people of Larkana district were facing all sorts of problems right from `murder of merit` in jobs to the unhygienic conditions in their neighbourhoods.

Loadshedding of 18 to 20 hours a day and highly inflated electricity bills had devastated domestic, commercial and industrial power consumers.

Soaring prices, poor law and order, growing cases of extortion and an indifferent attitude of the authorities concerned had sent a wave of unrest among the masses, they added.

They observed that no development and maintenance works were being carried out and government functionaries turned a deaf ear towards piling public complaints. Nepotism and favourtism had become rampant and there was no check on the spending of Rs85 billion allocated for various development schemes.

The JUI-F leaders noted that PPP rulers even misappropriated the funds released for Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto uplift schemes.

Through a resolution, the rally participants termed the ongoing ACE drive `a mere eyewash` and called for accelerating the pace of theNAB and FIA actions against corruption to recover the looted national wealth.

The other resolutions demanded scaling down the power loadshedding to a bearable level, issuance of correct electricity bills to consumers, shifting of high-tension lines from populated areas and posting of SHOs on merit.

Two die in road accident Two passengers died and more than 12 sustained injuries when a dumper truck ploughed into a wagon on the Mirokhan bypass road on Tuesday.

The dumper truck engaged for road construction work hit the wagon bound for Drib Chandio village, killing wagon driver Manzoor Chandio and 18-month-old Muhammed Ali Chandio.

The injured were taken to the Chandka Medical College Hospital. Some of them were identified as Ali Murad Kori, his son Mudassir Kori, Abdul Rasheed Chandio, Ali Chandio, Nek Muhammed, Shahid Lashari, Roshan Jogi, Mukhtiar Lashari, Ms Jeejan Chandio, Ms Fatima Chandio and Ms Heer Chandio. The dumper driver fled after the accident.