Facing life threats: Mirza advised to go underground

PPP member Dr Asim to make a comeback.

ISLAMABAD:

The recently-relieved Home Minister Sindh Dr Zulfikar Mirza is said to have been advised to go “underground” after it was revealed that his life was under threat.

The Pakistan Peoples Party has now decided that Dr Asim Hussain will be awarded a Senate seat that fell vacant after a PPP senator quit and became a member of the National Assembly in place of assassinated minorities’ minister Shahbaz Bhatti. Dr Asim will then be appointed a federal minister.

Well-placed sources within the federal government put to rest rumours that Mirza was to be given a Senate seat after tendering his resignation from the Sindh Assembly. Reports had suggested that, following his induction into the upper house of Parliament on the vacant seat, Mirza was to get a ministerial portfolio in the centre.

The sources maintained that the former home minister had been receiving threats following his vocal stand against some rogue elements with whom he was not ready to strike a compromise, despite continuous interventions from Islamabad

Subsequently, he was advised by his party leaders to go underground for some time and halt political activities for his own safety.

The threat, stressed sources, was so serious in nature that Mirza was not even allowed to announce his decision to go “underground” during his press conference.

In the meantime, the sources said, President Asif Ali Zardari had decided to award the Senate seat in question to his friend Dr Asim Hussain, who had served as adviser to the prime minister on Petroleum in 2009 before quitting. He is being brought back and will be made a minister first and then given an important portfolio dealing with a number of pending multi-billion-dollar contracts.



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