Pre-emptive strike?: Scores held day before PPP rally

Ruling party to hold rally in support of SPLGO 2012 today, opponents to observe black day.

HYDERABAD/ KARACHI:

A day before Pakistan Peoples Party’s rally to plug its new local government law on Monday (today), the nationalists claimed that the ruling party was busy with more than just finalising seating arrangements.

Hundreds of workers were swept up in raids that did not culminate in arrests and were not officially reported. Awami Tehreek President Ayaz Latif Palijo claimed that 240 of their workers were held on orders of the ruling party. The same was said for 50 Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz workers, 70 from the Sindh United Party and 30 from Jeay Sindh Tehreek on Sunday.

The PPP may have good reason to want to round up troublemakers. Its leaders have been violently attacked with bombs, grenades and firing over the last week in what is seen as retaliation to the new law. Nationalists have opposed it.

In Thatta, five JSQM workers were arrested from Sajjawal during police raids on their homes. Anwar Mallah was picked up from his house in Daro but Awami Tehreek’s Ashraf Palijo reportedly escaped.

Thatta SSP Usman Ghani denied any raids which targeted nationalists. “Only routine crackdowns took place, we did not target anyone,” he said.

Other workers were picked up from Gharo, Dhabeji, Jati, Mirpurkhas, Golarchi, Shaheed Benazirabad and Digri. Tando Adam police, in Sanghar district, allegedly raided homes and offices of nationalist workers but no arrests were reported.

Shoes and boos

Sindh Taraqi Pasand’s Dr Qadir Magsi said that the raids show the rulers are nervous. Magsi claimed dozens of party workers had been arrested in Thatta, Badin, Mirpurkhas and Sanghar.

Shah Muhammad Shah, the SUP acting president, informed The Express Tribune that around 19,000 policemen were deployed in Hyderabad for the rally.

“The polio campaign had to be delayed because of this [rally],” he said.

JSQM’s Sagar Hanif Burdi said that the party workers were being harassed and had been warned “not to throw eggs at the rally”.

The Jeay Sindh Tehreek also held a protest in Karachi on Sunday against the ordinance. Hundreds of party workers, led by its president Dr Safdar Sarki, marched from Malir to the Karachi Press Club with flags and portraits of the Sindhi nationalist leader GM Syed.  “[The government] shaould learn lessons from the fall of Dhaka and the situation in Balochistan,” warned Sarki.He warned the PPP leaders that people have been angered by the new local government system and will come after them with shoes. This inspired a new slogan, which the party’s workers started chanting immediately: ‘Tun Sindh wirhainde, padar khainden’ (You’ll be beaten with shoes if you divide Sindh).

PPP’s arrival in Hyderabad

As the nationalists fumed, Federal Minister Moula Bux Chandio also issued a warning, saying that attempts to foil the rally would be dealt with according to the law.

“They should not spread hatred among the people of Sindh.” The public meeting will be addressed by former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, federal minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, Syed Naveed Qamar, Khursheed Shah, Senator Raza Rabbani, the Sindh chief minister and ministers of the cabinet.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2012.