Dictators blamed for selling rivers to India

LAHORE - With stand off between the two allies intensifying, top PPP and PML (N) provincial leaders once again tried to put up a united face saying that the military dictators were responsible for brining harm to the country and not the politicians.
“You name any issue whether it is the break-up of Pakistan or the issue of Indus Water Treaty or allowing India to construct dams in the disputed region or more importantly selling rivers of Punjab to India, one dictator or the other comes to our mind. It is the military dictators who committed all these blunders,” veteran politician Sardar Zulifqar Khosa said while addressing a press-conference here at Chief Minister’s Secretariat on Tuesday.
Zulifqar Khosa was flanked by Senior Minister Punjab Raja Riaz, Finance Minister Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, Agriculture Minister Ahmed Ali Oulakh and Law Minister Rana Sana Ullah on this occasion. The show of unity came when both Governor and PML-N’s Law Minister locked horns once again, lecturing each other on the constitutional obligations.
These leaders from both the sides were successfully giving an impression to the media that they are united. They were also reluctant to respond to the questions on the ongoing stand off in the Punjab during the press conference.
Sardar Zulifqar said that neither Zulifqar Ali Bhutto nor Nawaz Sharif allowed India to construct dams on the Pakistani rivers. “They were the military dictators who sold the rivers of Punjab by allowing India to construct dams in the disputed region of Kashmir,” Khosa emphasised.
He said that late Gen Zia-ul-Haq allowed India to construct Sallal Dam on Chenab River while Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf allowed India to construct Baglihar Dam on this river. He further said that Pakistan would have to take up the issue of stopping Chenab water by India at the international forum.
The chief minister Punjab during his meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari, expected by the end of this month, will discuss the issue of stopping water by India with the president. “Apart from other political issues, the issue of stopping Chenab water by India will also be in the agenda of the meeting between the president and the chief minister Punjab,” Khosa said.