KARACHI, July 14: Politicians in this country are not exactly known for their statesmanship. But Dr Zulfikar Mirza — one of Sindh’s two senior ministers — seems to take exceptional delight in saying things that are inappropriate at best and inflammatory at worst. The latest violence in Sindh, particularly Karachi, fuelled by his outburst late on Wednesday, bears testament to this fact, as do the successive statements the good doctor has made in the three years this government has been around.

Dr Mirza is associated with the Pakistan People’s Party and is said to be one of the most powerful men in the Sindh cabinet.

However, it must be noted that before the current avatar of the party took form following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar Mirza was not amongst the PPP front-rankers.

Before he was made senior minister (as well as holding the works and services portfolio), sharing the office with Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq (a bit of an anomaly), Dr Mirza held various ministerial portfolios, including prisons, forests and wildlife and, most importantly, the home ministry. Suffice to say, Sindh, especially Karachi, suffered from severe lawlessness, particularly the curse of targeted killings, under his watch; despite Dr Mirza’s verbal bluster, he did little to keep the peace in Sindh.

Elected from PS-57 Badin I in the 2008 elections, Dr Mirza was also elected to the National Assembly in 1993. While his wife, Dr Fahmida Mirza, is the speaker of the National Assembly, it is widely believed that Dr Mirza’s political influence is the result of his firm friendship with President Zardari. Fahmida Mirza also belongs to a known political (Qazi) family of Sindh, but her own political career started when her husband was forced to go into hiding, first during Nawaz Sharif’s second government and later during Musharraf’s regime, as there were charges of corruption against him.

While on his provincial assembly profile page his professions are listed as industrialist, agriculturalist and doctor, the Hyderabad-born medic has offered no helpful prescriptions for Sindh’s problems; rather, his verbal fireworks have only resulted in giving the province and the city severe convulsions, adding to their maladies. Dr Mirza never minced his words while referring to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement even while the PPP was in a coalition with the MQM. There is a large section of the PPP that really adores Dr Mirza for what he calls his frank and bold comments about the MQM. However, quite a few PPP members, particularly those from Karachi, felt that perhaps he really crossed the line when he attacked the Mohajirs while taking a swipe at the MQM.

Though the bulk of his vitriol has been reserved for the MQM, Dr Mirza in general has managed to offend many stakeholders by saying and doing highly impolitic things. For example in February 2009 he told a questioner in the Sindh Assembly that he possessed 350 arms licences. In a city awash with arms, many wondered if boasting of possessing so many guns — even if they were legal — was such a bright idea.

In one of his many swipes at the MQM, Dr Mirza told a press conference held at Karachi’s Central Police Office in August 2009 that the Muttahida’s concerns about creeping Talibanisation in Karachi were exaggerated, and that the MQM had been included in the coalition “out of compulsion to keep peace in Karachi”. He also criticised the role of his “brothers” (the MQM) in the previous set-up.

In June 2010 he incurred the wrath of the judiciary when he said it was “freeing terrorists” by giving them the “benefit of the doubt”. One of his most divisive statements came in December 2010 while he was speaking to members of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. On that occasion he inferred that the MQM was responsible for targeted killings in Karachi, while adding that the Mohajir community would face the wrath of other communities if other ethnic groups decided to pursue “tit-for-tat” action.

In March 2011 Dr Mirza said that the People’s Amn Committee was a “wing” of the PPP. As expected, this elicited howls of protest from the MQM. Perhaps it was due to this rising chorus against the doctor’s unwanted prescriptions that the PPP decided to put him to pasture, sending him on “indefinite leave” in April, with Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah taking the reins of the home ministry.

But this was not to be too long a leave. Wednesday’s statement, in which he confessed to meeting jailed Haqiqi leader Afaq Ahmed, who he termed “leader of the Mohajir nation”, as well as tarring the entire Mohajir community with the same brush while criticising the MQM, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

It was viewed by many right-thinking people as incendiary considering Karachi’s current situation as well as highly communal. Dr Mirza has every right to criticise the MQM. However, when such irresponsible comments have the potential to spark communal violence — as they most certainly did, with Karachi descending into an orgy of mayhem on Wednesday night, continuing into Thursday — much thought is needed before making them. Just as the comments were provocative, the violent reaction they met on the streets of Karachi was equally uncalled-for.