The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and accounts of eye-witnesses claim that the PPP’s workers were not involved in the citywide plunder that took place after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Irshad Hussain, a businessman and eye witness to the lootings told Daily Times, “I have no idea who these people were, but they did not look like PPP workers. They were not from our area.”
Hussain said that the burning of tires and forced closure of businesses was as normal a form of backlash as they come, but the scale of the looting experienced in Karachi and other parts of the country hinted to an organized and guilty third party.
Asad Naeem, a resident of Gulberg Town can recall a scene where a burnt Mazda truck was being dragged on the road behind two motorcycles. “There was a very confident looking person sitting on the driver’s seat of the truck,” he said, “while the two motorcyclists were also not afraid to stare people down.”
Another shopkeeper repots to having his stock of very precious native blankets burnt by the rioters. Unfortunately, this teary eyed elderly shopkeeper was also unable to identify those responsible or their political affiliations.
A senior member of the PPP, Mujahid Hashim, expressed his surprise at the reaction of people at Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. He said he was one of the young protestors who had come out to force shops and businesses to shut down in 1979.
“Neither me, nor any of my comrades deprived anyone of anything when we forced them to close their business as a protest to the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the deposed prime minister of Pakistan,” he said.
Many senior members of the PPP were quick to recall the same incident, saying that people were immensely emotional and charged on the judicial murder of Murtaza Bhutto, the father of Benazir Bhutto in April 1979, but they did nothing but put their own lives at risk by urging people to close down their business.
The PPP’s federal council member Jamil Soomro was quick to point out that when people mourn the brutal murder of their dear ones, they don’t exactly have time to plan loot and theft. He said that the PPP’s workers were busy attending condolence gatherings for the murder of their leader to organize any looting.
“The PPP didn’t force any shopkeeper or businessman to close their business, but they voluntarily closedown their business to show their solidarity with us,” said Soomro.
Soomro said that Benazir Bhutto was the most loving and the most popular leader of Pakistan and her supporters were deeply shocked by her death.
Answering a question, he said, “Those involved in the violence and theft belong to parties which want to give PPP a bad name before the coming elections and the registration of cases and arrest of party workers was also proof that the current regime is trying to cripple the party before the elections.”
Provincial Deputy Information Secretary for the PPP Waqar Mehdi accused the PML-Q leaders for playing the “blame game” and warned them against inciting ethnic hatred. He said that the PML-Q Sindh’s officials claimed at a press conference in Islamabad that Sindhis had suffered colossal losses during the riots but immediately afterwards Chaudhry Shujaat negated this statement, saying it was the Urdu speaking community which suffered all the loss.
Mehdi said it is shameful that the former ruling coalition’s parties were trying to hoodwink people by making false statements. “Everybody knows who is in the administration across Sindh. Areas where PPP lacked majority also witnessed looting and theft, so who can do it?”
Mehdi also said that the victims of the riots should be immediately compensated.
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