Restaurant attack: PML-N says PPP leaders hired the perpetrators

Party’s Sardar Rahim owned BBQ Tonigh­t which was attack­ed on Monday.

HYDERABAD:

The Pakistan Muslim League — Nawaz (PML-N) has accused the main leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party in Sindh of hiring men to attack a Clifton restaurant owned by a party member.

Sardar Rahim co-owns BBQ Tonight which was attacked by activists of the Sindh National Party (SNP) during a protest on Monday against remarks made by the Punjab chief minister. The protest turned violent when some activists barged into the restaurant, attacked the waiters and damaged furniture and windows.

PML-N workers believed that senior PPP leaders incited the people to react in this way. Addressing a news conference on Tuesday, members of the PML-N Central Council, Rafique Lund, Asifa Ilyas, and others claimed that Ameer Bhanbro of the SNP was given orders by Shah to attack the restaurant. “This was a clear retaliation to the Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif’s statement on separating Karachi from Sindh.

“[Senior PPP leaders] should have asked party workers to react instead of hiring hoodlums,” said PML-N’s Roshan Ali Baloch.

Such a ferocious attack was uncalled for when Shahbaz Sharif had already clarified his statement, he said. “This is tantamount to fanning ethnicity by a party that claims to be national.” The PML-N leaders also accused the Sindh government of blowing the issue out of proportion “to cover up the sins they are committing in the census”. An FIR of the attack has been registered, said one of the members. The party will make sure the attackers, including Bhanbro, are arrested, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2011.