Living honourably: Altaf calls for eliminating political dynasties

MQM chief calls upon people in southern Punjab to purge Pakistan of ‘thieves and crooks’.

Only people belonging to low- and middle-income groups, comprising 98 per cent of the country’s total population, can ensure solidarity and unity of the country, said MQM chief Altaf Hussain, according to a handout issued on Sunday.

Addressing a gathering at the Multan zonal office over telephone, Altaf Hussain said that if the country and the nation could not get rid of a few political dynasties, Pakistan would cease to exist.

Wishing MQM activists a happy new year, he highlighted sacrifices rendered for the creation of Pakistan and said that successive military and civilian rulers had made Pakistan dependent on foreign aid, loans and chairities while imposing tax upon tax on the poor people, fuelling the already runaway inflation.

According to the MQM chief, Pakistan cannot make any progress and the country’s prosperity cannot be assured until the hegemony of a few feudal families and political dynasties is ended. Stressing the need for rendering sacrifices, Altaf Hussain urged his party’s activists to purge Pakistan of “thieves, crooks and people who usurped loans”. Criticising the ruling elite for treating the people all over southern Punjab “like slaves”, Altaf Hussain also urged the people to support his party and resolve to “die honourably, instead of living a life of humiliation, hunger and poverty”.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2011.