LARKANA: Senior Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Ayaz Soomro, who was also a sitting MNA from Larkana and a former Sindh law minister, died during treatment of his heart ailment at a hospital in Manhattan, New York, on Tuesday aged about 60. He had been under treatment in Pakistan and the United States for several months.

Born to a humble family on Dec 31, 1958 in Shahdadkot, Ayaz Soomro was elected to the National Assembly from the NA-204 Larkana-I constituency in 2013 on a PPP-Parliamen­tarians ticket. He remained loyal to PPP till his last breath.

Advocate by profession, he was the son of a teacher, Khuda Bukhsh Soomro.

He got his primary education in Shahdadkot and graduated in law. During his student life, he took active part in student politics and joined the PPP student wing, Sindh Peoples Students Federation (SPSF).

He was elevated to the wing’s general secretary due to being a staunch activist and his commitment to the PPP.

Soomro remained very close to party’s chairperson and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated on Dec 27, 2007.

Soomro was first awarded PPP ticket for the PS-37 Ratodero constituency in 1994 and then in 2003 and 2008. He won the seat though it was not his home constituency. He defeated Amir Bukhsh Bhutto on this seat. He was taken in the cabinet of Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and given the portfolios of law, prisons and parliamentary affairs.

Ayaz Soomro had started his career in electoral politics in 1987 when he became a councillor of the Larkana Municipal Comm­ittee.

He remained the president of the Larkana District Bar Asso­cia­tion for 10 consecutive years and had been instrumental in getting PPP-backed candidates elec­ted to the bar.

He also held the slot of Sindh Bar Council’s vice chairman.

During his tenure as law minister, Soomro got constructed the new building of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Law College in Larkana. He had always been on the forefront in the PPP and bar politics.

During the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in 1983, Soomro was arrested along with other party stalwarts.

He and other prominent PPP lea­ders, including Ghulam Mus­tafa Jatoi and Ghula­m­­­ullah Mah­oto, were sent to the Machh jail in Balochistan.

Ayaz Soomro also suffered imprisonment during a movement launched by the legal fraternity.

He was sent to jail along with Abdul Hamid Bhurgri (now additional advocate general at the Sindh High Court’s Larkana circuit) and other advocates. They were kept in the Larkana Central Prison after their arrest for joining the protest against removal of the then chief justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

He burnt the midnight oil during the difficult days of PPP when a large number of party workers had been sent behind bars.

In the absence of Benazir Bhutto, he had to prepare bulky bail papers of party workers and represent them in different courts to secure their release.

He headed the PPP Larkana district chapter for 10 years and stood unshaken with the party through thick and thin.

The late Soomro was a member of the committee, headed by former SHC judge Zahid Qurban Alvi, which supervised construction of the high court building in Larkana which is a replica of the court’s principal seat.

Party sources said that Ayaz Soomro was the caretaker of Z.A. Bhutto Charitable Trust. They said the late leader’s body would arrive in Karachi on Thursday. He would be laid to rest in the graveyard of his native town, Shahdadkot, the same day, family sources said.

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, co-chairman Asif Ali Zard­ari, MNA Faryal Talpur, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Sindh Assembly Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani, Sindh PPP president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro and all PPP senators, ministers, MNAs and MPAs have expressed their heartfelt grief and sorrow over the sad demise of MNA Ayaz Soomro.

They eulogised the services and sacrifices of the late Soomro and his lifelong commitment and loyalty to the party’s cause.

Nisar Khuhro on Tuesday anno­u­n­ced a three-day mourning in Larkana, where party’s activities would remain suspended.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2018