I fail to understand what caused Sindh’s Senior Minister Zulfiqar Mirza to say such harsh things about the MQM.
KARACHI: I completely fail to understand what caused Sindh’s Senior Minister Zulfiqar Mirza to say such harsh things about the MQM. Interior Minister Rehman Malik doesn’t need to apologise on Mr Mirza’s behalf, if anything the latter needs to stand up and take responsibility for what he has said and the pain he has caused not only to the MQM but also to the people of Karachi. Clearly, Mr Mirza seems to have said this because he wants to become popular among some elements within his own party, but the unfortunate fact is that every time he says something like this, his own party’s leadership has to rush to London and apologise to the MQM chief.
Given that tension had already been running quite high in the city, the last thing that the provincial government’s senior minister should have done is to add fuel to the fire. For the president or the PPP itself to now disown Mr Mirza’s remarks will be a hard sell because of the position that he enjoys in the party.
Let’s also not forget the loss to millions of daily wage earners who lost their day’s livelihood because Karachi ended up being basically shut down on July 14. One hopes that the senior leadership of the PPP will take charge of the situation and use all the resources at its disposal to bring down the tension in the province.
Lt-Col (retd) Mukhtar Ahmed Butt
Published in The Express Tribune, July 15th, 2011.
