HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Sindh president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro has said that Karsaz tragedy was plotted to target PPP leadership during the dictatorship of that time. The October 18, 2007 twin blasts at Karsaz (Karachi) and Dec 27, 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto were the parts of the same conspiracy, he said.

He was speaking at a seminar on ‘Sanha-i-Karsaz kay siasi asarat’ organised by the party’s Sindh cultural wing in the local press club on Thursday.

Khuhro paid homage to martyrs of Karsaz tragedy on the eve of its 17th anniversary. The attack was carried out on the homecoming rally of Benazir Bhutto.

Khuhro said that PPP always struggled for democracy and the masses, adding that such struggle would continue.

He demanded that Arbab Ghulam Rahim (who was the chief minister of Sindh in 2007) should be included in the Karsaz tragedy investigation, maintaining that PPP wanted to know how the then CM had made the statement that the Karsaz rally would end “before 12 midnight”.

Khuhro reiterated PPP’s resolve that the struggle for parliament’s supremacy and continuity of democratic process would continue. He said PPP would not allow democracy to be derailed.

‘Sindh’s water being stolen’

Khuhro told the seminar that PPP rejected the clearance given by the CDWP to the Cholistan canal project. Such matters should be decided by the Council of Common Interests (CCI), he asserted.

He regretted that the 1991 Water Accord was not being implemented and, as a result, Sindh was getting inadequate water flows. In these circumstances, he said, no new canals over Indus could be accepted.

He noted that the Chashma-Jhelum link canal, a flood channel, was now being operated regularly, adding that [Sindh’s] “water is stolen between Taunsa and Guddu barrages through lift machines”. He said Sindh feared that robbery on Sindh’s water share would be committed through the Cholistan canal project. He called for installation of telemetry system to check water flows in the system.

PPP Sindh vice president Sarfaraz Rajar said that the present democratic process owed its continuity to sacrifices of PPP leadership and workers.

PPP Information Secretary Ajiz Dhamra said that present democracy was a gift from Benazir Bhutto and other martyrs. He said that PPP would strive hard to keep this process going.

Resolutions

Through several resolutions adopted unanimously, the seminar participants demanded inclusion of Arbab Ghulam Rahim’s name in the investigation of Karsaz tragedy; vowed to continue democratic process for supremacy of parliament and law; called the likely consensus among political forces on judicial reforms as victory of democracy; termed the recent clearance by CDWP to canals project in Punjab ‘unconstitutional’; deman­ded implementation of 1991 Water Accord; and called for resolving all water disputes in CCI.

The participants also warned that Sindh would resist any new canal over Indus.

STP puts off protest

Sindh Taraqqi-Pasand Party has postponed its protest, scheduled for Friday in Hyderabad, against the six canals project.

STP Chairman Dr Qadir Magsi made the announcement on Thursday night after Senior Sindh Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon called on him with a request to put off the protest in view of PPP’s major event of Karsaz tragedy anniversary being held on the same day.

STP workers had planned to stand on shoulders of the National Highway to hold the protest on the arrival of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. The protest was aimed at expressing STP’s view that PPP was not taking up the issue properly.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2024