Reaction: PPP, nationalists warn against carve-up

Ayaz Latif Palijo asks MQM leadership to retract the statement within next 48 hours and apologise.

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Peoples Party leadership and Sindhi nationalist parties strongly reacted to MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s statement on Friday.

The party’s patron-in-chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Friday wrote ‘Marsoon Marsoon, Sindh na Ddaisun’, [We will die but won’t give Sindh to others] on social networking website Twitter.

https://twitter.com/BBhuttoZardari/statuses/419089258037923840

Reacting to statement by Altaf Hussain terming Bilawal his nephew, the PPP patron-in-chief also made a post saying his love for Sindh was greater ‘than his love for his uncle (Altaf Hussain)’.

Qaumi Awami Tehreek leader Ayaz Latif Palijo asked the MQM leadership to retract the statement within the next 48 hours and apologise.

“We won’t tolerate such a scheme,” he said. He also warned that his party would call a strike if the MQM chief did not take back his statement.

“It is not only against the interest of Sindh but against the Constitution of Pakistan,” reacted Sindh United Party President Syed Jalal Mehmood Shah. He said the MQM and the PPP intended to create hatred between Sindhis and Urdu-speaking people to uplift their plummeting popularity graphs.

“Sindh is not a cake. It is a province and will remain a province,” reacted Sindh Senior Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, adding that the division of Sindh was possible only over the bodies of PPP workers. He said that the environment of brotherhood will be disturbed with such statements.

Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon also denounced Altaf’s recent statement. “The anger over Musharaf’s trial is being outpoured over the people of Sindh,” he reacted.

He said that MQM’s leader should avoid of such statements, adding that the MQM’s governor was in power for the last 11 years. He said complaint to federal or provincial governments should be sent through the Sindh governor. “Such statement should not be made in public gatherings,” he said.

Pakistan Muslim League-Functional has also strongly reacted to Altaf’s statement and suggested that the MQM should bring all issues before the Sindh Assembly if anybody had harmed or wronged it.

“We’ll support the MQM, if government does anything wrong with them but Sindh people won’t tolerate division of Sindh. There is strong reaction in Sindh after Altaf Hussain’s statement,” said Imtiaz Shaikh, the PML-F’s secretary general.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2014.