RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Addressed a public gathering at Bagh-e-Jinnah on Saturday, Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that they would not forget the carnage of 12 May 2007 when the PPP activists were gunned down at Shahra-e-Faisal and Malir areas of the city and they were not even allowed to collect the bodies of the martyred for several hours.

“This was the repeat of the Jalianwala Bagh [massacre],” he said.

He said that on that day as many as 58 innocent lives were lost.

“The then provincial advisor on home affairs and incumbent Mayor Karachi Waseem Akhter was responsible for this carnage,” he said.

He said that PPP on the day took out rallies for the respect and sanctity of the institutions but the then Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry for whose restoration people came out did not even visit the martyrs’ families to offer condolences.

Speaking on the issue of enforced disappearances in the country, Bilawal said that a large number of people have gone missing in the country.

“I do not know who is responsible but the state should treat its citizens equally,” he said, adding that they would not abandon the families of the missing people in their hour of trial.

Speaking on criticism on PPP for introducing quota system, Bilawal said that its first notification was issued by the first prime minister of the country Liaqaut Ali Khan and the last one by General Yahya Khan.

“We did not carry out any legislation on this [quota system] and if anybody blames us then he should come out with proof,” he challenged and said that MQM is carrying out its politics for the last 30 years on the basis of sheer lies.

“They have only given bodies, blasts and coffins and now the Karachiites ask why their loved ones were snatched from them in this way,” he said.

He blamed MQM-P for not completing water and sewerage projects in its various tenures. He said that the MQM-P leader Farooq Sattar had himself alleged the members of party’s coordination committee had been working as ghost employees. Sattar has accused the Mayor Karachi for embezzling local government funds, Bilawal added.

“I demand chief minister to carry out an investigation into the claims made by Sattar,” he said these were those billions of rupees which the provincial government gave away to the Mayor Karachi for uplift projects but he embezzled the funds and later raised a hue and cry over imaginary lack of funds and powers.

Criticizing MQM for stating that they would not allow ruling the city from Larkana, Bilawal said that he lives in Karachi and both the cities are part of the Sindh province.

The Karachiites will have to decide in the elections 2018 whether they want to change their fate.

“Supporting any faction of the MQM whether it is London, Pakistan or PSP through votes would not help the cause of the city,” he said and added that PPP had served the city by building roads, bridges, underpasses.

Criticizing PML-N, he said the federal government led by PML-N was responsible for depriving the province of due water share and it was due to their delay that the K-IV bulk water supply project had hit snags.

After next elections, we have plans to build a Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant to turn seawater into drinking water; he said adding that PPP had installed several RO plants in the province.

He said that PPP is the only party that represents the federation.

He said that Imran Khan is also trying to fool Karachiites as he did in past elections and is trying to sell a new idea of ‘one Pakistan’.

“When he could not build one KLPK and had dual standards of health, education, law and order in the province then how could he introduce one system in the entire country,” he said.