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| January 26, 2003 | Sunday | Ziqa’ad 22,1423 |
Harassment of PPP MPA condemned
ISLAMABAD, Jan 25: Former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, on Saturday condemned the harassment of Peoples Party Parliamentarians by the government.
In a statement issued here today, she warned the government against pushing its political opponents to the wall. “It is a matter of national shame that the regime had resorted to worst kind of horse-trading and floor-crossing through inducements and coercion to break the mainstream political parties.
She claimed that Dr Sohrab Sarki, a PPP MPA from Jacobabad, has been receiving warnings since the elections to either join the “Patriots” group or party renegades or else be ready for dire consequences.
In a statement she said that the MPA from Jacobabad was first offered a berth in the provincial cabinet in return for his vote for the chief minister of Sindh in the confidence vote.
The tale of his woes and that of the regime’s shame began when he declined the offer and refused to vote for chief minister Mahar.
She said that the litany of victimization measures taken by the regime during the last eight weeks against Dr Sarki was long and painful. First, his elder brother Liaquat Ali Sarki, an SDO in the provincial agriculture department, was implicated in a case by the Anti-Corruption Department Sindh, threatened with jail and dismissal from government service.
Dr Sohrab Sarki was also warned, she claimed, that if he refused to toe the line, he could find himself in the camp of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
She said that Dr Sarki has also been warned that if he continued supporting the PPP, he could get unseated as MPA, as an election petition was pending against him.
She said that on Friday last, another brother of the MPA, Sardar Zulfiqar Sarki was also challaned in the Anti-Terror court in Sukkur, on charges of murder and possession of explosives.
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