THATTA: PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Saturday that efforts for reconciliation between the government and Taliban would prove futile and that the final war with terrorists would be fought in Sindh.

Addressing the concluding event of the Sindh Festival at the Makli Stadium, he said the mothers and sisters of security personnel who died while protecting the nation from terrorists should be asked about the outcome of such negotiations. He said he himself had lost his mother at the hand of terrorists.

He asked whether the nation had forgotten the episode of extremist leader Sufi Muhammad, followed by revival of peace and tranquillity in Swat and maintenance of the writ of the state there by the former PPP government.

The PPP chief said giving any relaxation to the Taliban would open the avenues of illiteracy and ignorance and “our identity – the traditional festivals (Melas and Urs) – will become extinct with time”. Girls would not be allowed to get education and ladies would be stopped from driving cars.

He expressed the fear that the shrines in Garhi Khuda Bux as well as the mausoleum of the Quaid-i-Azam were bound to meet the same fate as the Quaid’s Residency in Ziarat if the Taliban gained power.

He said that even after suffering irreparable losses the mothers and sisters of martyred army and police personnel could be seen raising slogans for Pakistan. Referring to the sacrifices of the young anti-extremism activists, he asked whether the future Malala Yousufzais and Aitzazs would face the same fate at the hands of terrorists and added that any agreement written with the blood of innocent people would be counterproductive.

He warned that the time was not far when the nation would chant “Dama Dam Mast Qalandar” and the terrorists would find no one to mourn them.

The PPP leader said a handful of clerics, seminaries and their followers were bent upon imposing their own interpretation of the religion on the nation, but they would never be allowed to succeed.

He cautioned that if such people wished to have a future for their coming generations and to stay in the country, they should unconditionally accept the Constitution and desist from dreaming of imposing “their laws”.

He said the PPP had organised the Sindh Festival because it was the need of the time for the nation to resist going into isolation by showing its civilised face to the world.

He said the PPP had assembled intellectuals, diplomats and other people from the country and abroad to let them know that the Pakistanis were not terrorists but victims of terrorism.

“We are neither Arabs nor the product of the West; we have our own identity, country, culture and heritage that are at stake due to the misleading interpretation of Islam by some groups having nefarious agendas.

“Don’t teach us Islam; we are true Muslims who recite the holy Quran, pray regularly and are sincere with our nation,” he said.

“We are the oldest civilised nation in this continent as is evident from Moenjodaro. We will eliminate terrorism, sectarianism and hatred from this land at all cost and no tsunami of terrorism will harm us.”