United: Rival parties unite to implement NRO verdict

Rally was organised by PML-N, PTI with leaders from JI, STPP and PPP-Shaheed Bhutto.

HYDERABAD: The local leaders and activists of two rival political parties, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI), met for a joint rally on Monday morning to demand the implementation of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) verdict given by the Supreme Court.

The rally, which had a few hundred participants, was organised right when the Supreme Court bench in Islamabad announced its verdict in the morning.

Leaders from other parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami, Sindh Tarraqi Pasand Party, Pakistan Peoples Party-Shaheed Bhutto and Sindh National Party, with the members of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and lawyers also threw in their weight.

“Our protest is not against any party or the government,” said Afzal Gujjar, the district president of the PML-N. “We only want the court’s orders to be implemented.”

The agenda of the rally, however, drifted to criticising President Asif Ali Zardari as the participants chanted “Go, Zardari Go” and unleashed a barrage of criticism against the Pakistan Peoples Party.

JI’s Ameer Abdul Waheed Qureshi blamed the government for violating the constitution.

“These are the double standards of the ruling party - they made the constitution and they are the ones violating it.”

Usman Kennedy, a veteran political worker of the Pakistan Peoples Party who recently joined the PTI, called for the establishment of the rule of law, which will be exemplified by the Supreme Court’s judgment. “This government spread corruption and unemployment,” said another PTI leader, Ahmed Rashid.

The HRCP’s Ashuthama warned the government of facing the same resistance which Pervez Musharraf faced if the government defied the apex court.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2012.