No respite to conspiracies against Democracy: Bilawal

Nasir Majeed

HYDERABAD: Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has said that conspiracies against democracies haven’t been stopped in Pakistan.

He said this while addressing a huge public gathering at Hyderabad being staged to remember the martyrs of October 18, who were killed during bomb blast near Karsaz Karachi on Benazir Bhutto’s rally back home from abroad.

“A dictator after hanging Bhutto thought that he finished Pakistan Peoples Party,” Bilawal said, adding that the dictator finished instead. Benazir had been challenging dictators and terrorists everywhere, he added.

Bilawal stressed that there should be across-the-board accountability.

“We are never with Nawaz Sharif but support democracy when it is in trouble.” Your so-called motorway has taken more than hundreds of precious lives,” Bilawal said. “We should be told that why have few projects of center not been completed,” Bilawal further said.

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Isnaf have not program for poor masses, he added. Pakistan Peoples Party Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari paid tribute to those martyred in the blast in Karachi’s Karsaz area in a party rally on October 18 in 2007.

PPP chairperson lauded the courage of those who “did not run away after the first attack but instead rushed towards their leader, Benazir Bhutto, and embraced martyrdom in the second blast”. PPP has faced challenged ever since its inception, he added. “After Zulfikar Bhutto was hanged Benazir and Nusrat Bhutto took charge of the party and proved the dictators wrong.”

On the one hand was PPP, Bilawal said, while on the other was the politics nurtured by dictators.

However, the PPP chairperson added, politics is not the name of mud-slinging. Bilawal criticised the stance of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairperson Imran Khan, saying there are some politicians who have not yet come out of the cricket ground.

“These people use corruption as a mere slogan,” Bilawal said. “But corruption cannot be ended till farmers and laborers will continue to be exploited.” The PPP chairperson also criticized the motorway constructed under the rule of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. “Your so-called motorway has so far claimed hundreds of lives.”

Other leaders of the party were also present on the stage with Bilawal.

Earlier in the evening PPP leader Naveed Qamar addressed the rally, saying martyrdom takes PPP higher in rank. But, he added, those behind the Karsaz attack are still alive. Qamar said they do not fear conspiracies, therefore, would never back out.

“Conspirators say elections will not take place,” he added. “But such statements are made by those who get nothing out of elections.” Forty-thousand seats have been placed in the venue for thousands of supporters and workers expected to pay tribute to the 177 martyrs of the blast.

Strict security measures have been taken and 5,000 police personnel have been deployed in and around the venue.

The bombing on 18 October, 2007 was an attack on the motorcade carrying former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The streets of Karachi had come to a grinding halt to welcome Benazir Bhutto, after an eight-year self-imposed exile during which she lived in Dubai and London.

Two explosions occurred in front of the rallying bullet-proof truck from which she greeted her fans and party members at approximately 00:52 PST, on the route about halfway from the airport to the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah for a scheduled rally, just after Bhutto’s truck had crossed a bridge near Karsaz.