LONDON: President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared tonight [Feb 18] that he would announce a timetable to lift Martial Law… . Speaking … with commentator Ian MacIntyre in the BBC radio programme “Analysis”, the Pakistan President disclosed that during his recent visit to Peking Premier Chou En-lai had confirmed a statement by President Nixon that after conquering East Pakistan, India intended to “finish the job” by capturing Azad Kashmir and destroying West Pakistan.

President Bhutto … said that no one had visualised at the time of election the terrible disaster Pakistan would suffer as a result of the “series of blunders” by the former Yahya regime in political and military fields. Pakistan had suffered a political catastrophe worse than which befell Poland in 1939. Even so, he wished to “return to democracy and for all time to come. We should build institutions such as judiciary, rule of law, fundamental rights, and Press freedom so that no military or civil adventurer can again inject martial law”.

[Meanwhile, according to our staff correspondent in Karachi,] The Governor of Sind yesterday [Feb 18] promulgated the Sind People’s Local Government Ordinance consolidating and amending the laws relating to the various tiers of Local Bodies in the province.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2022