Amn Committee: ‘We’ve been with PPP for a long time’

Members of the Peoples Amn Committee welcome Zulfiqar Mirza's acknowledgement of ties with the PPP.

KARACHI:

Members of the Peoples Amn Committee (PAC) have welcomed Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza’s acknowledgement of ties with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), saying it was a relief to finally be publicly accepted by the party.

“We have been a part of the PPP for a very long time,” said Hassan Habib, chairman of the education wing of the committee. “And though the acceptance has come late, we welcome it fully.”

He said that their relationship was like a hidden marriage, in that it “could not be hidden for a long time”.

“It had to come out. There is no point in hiding it now,” said Hassan. “It is a known fact in Lyari that we are a part of the PPP and working for the welfare of the people. So there is no need for us to justify ourselves.”

He said the PPP had previously denied any ties to the PAC because it did not want to anger its allies in government. “If the party had accepted us earlier they would have had to let go of some coalition partners, especially those who think we are extortionists or kidnappers.”

The PAC was formed in early 2008, as soon as the PPP government came to power. Zafar Jan, one of its first members, was appointed its spokesman.

Jan admitted that PAC members had been angered by the PPP’s refusal to acknowledge its connection to the committee. “People felt that the party did not care,” he said. “For us, the most important thing was being a PPP loyalist. But many party members felt shy accepting it [the PAC] in public. That angered us a lot, as we were only working for the development of Lyari.”

He said that the formation of the PAC was not planned. In those days, Lyari was the scene of major gang warfare. “We made this committee with the consent of the PPP to restore the peace by going door-to-door, meeting the people behind the killings and urging them to stop it for the sake of innocent people,” he said.

He said people “planted by agencies or those who think they own Karachi” were behind the violence in Lyari.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2011.