PPP is paying Lyari back for its support with oppression, says Qadir Magsi

Nationalist leader spoke about the Lyari operation and questioned Zulfiqar Mirza’s silence.

HYDERABAD:

Sindh’s nationalist leader Dr Qadir Magsi, accused Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of paying Lyari back with violence in return for the decades-long ardent support by its people for the party.

“The children of those who staunchly stood behind Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto are being murdered with PPP in power,” he alleged.

Magsi, who is the chairman of Sindh Taraqi Pasand Party, held a press conference in Hyderabad to have his fair say on the on-going operation in Lyari.

He took this opportunity to question the silence of former home minister Zulfiqar Mirza, who had publicly vowed to resist such a move. Sindh’s nationalist leaders have been particularly critical of Mirza whose anti Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) rhetoric stole their thunder among the people.

“Today injustice and cruelty is being meted out to the people of Lyari but the paper tiger [Mirza] has disappeared,” said Magsi. He held the PPP and its coalition partners responsible for the bloodshed, extortion, land grabbing and other crimes taking place in Karachi and claimed that only a newly-elected leadership, which took away power from the troika of PPP, MQM and Awami National Party, could salvage Karachi, its citizens and the business community.

Separately, at a party meeting, the president of Awami Tehreek (AT), Ayaz Latif Palijo, blamed the PPP for pandering to the MQM and pushing Sindhi, Baloch and Kutchi communities living in Karachi against the wall. “The irony is that the places of refuge of the actual terrorists in Karachi are spared any operation while only the Baloch are victimised.” He condemned the operation and said that PPP and MQM were orchestrating ethnic violence in Sindh so that PPP could win Sindhi votes and the MQM could lay claim to the Urdu speaking. “They don’t have any accomplishment to gather votes for the next elections,” he said. “Fanning the flames of ethnicity is the only thing they can resort to for votes.”

The Sindhi nationalist parties including STPP, AT and Sindh United Party announced to contest the elections for the first time this year. They plan to field joint candidates from the platform of Sindh Progressive Nationalist Alliance.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2012.