ISLAMABAD: May 7: To highlight the plight of the shelterless people of Rawalpindi and Islamabad and the sufferings of the masses and to prevent them from committing suicide the World Minorities Alliance (WMA) led a rally from Press Club Islamabad to the Parliament House which was attended by thousands of helpless and shelterless people of the two cities here on Wednesday. The rally was led by Convener WMA and former Federal Minister J.Salik who addressing on this occasion observed that he has been carrying out his struggle for the cause of the suppressed and underprivileged masses but now he wants to motivate these people to prevent them from taking extreme steps like committing suicide and selling their children and even their body organs like kidneys. He called upon the participants of the rally to term the event as “suicide prevention rally” and further lamented that it is irony of the fate that bureaucrats and politicians are living princely life and the poor despite having paid all their taxes and having a great role in the national development are being compelled to commit suicide. He further lamented that due to negligence of the government a group of profiteers, hoarders and black-marketers has made an extraordinary and unrealistic hike in the prices of the essential commodities making it hard for the common man to keep the body and soul together. He noted that Pakistan was massively funded by the international community and the donor agencies in the name of the development and uplift of the masses but no amount was spent for the cause of the poor. He alleged that all this money was wasted in the schemes that could benefit the elite of the country and to facilitate building of their palaces abroad. He said it is more than unfortunate an event that in this age of every day scientific inventions and development thousands of poor are compelled to live in inhuman rather shameful conditions with no facility of clean drinking water even. He expressed his disappointment that there is no representation of minorities in the parliament which has been a source of serious frustration and resentment amongst the minorities. He warned the rulers that their empathy on the sufferings of the minorities could compel the poor to take to rebellious course of action against the exploiters. Later J.Salik was received by the officials of the Prime Minister Secretariat near the Parliament House whom he handed over the applications for the provision of at least a residential plot of 80 yards each to an estimated ten thousand applicants. The participants of the rally including women, children, and even handicapped and ailing people were carrying placards and banners inscribed with their demand of a respectable living. They also chanted slogans for early implementation of the scheme announced by the Prime Minister to allot a plot to each and every shelterless dweller of the masses.