PPP march for Zardari's release on Dec 7 -DAWN


19 November 2004	Friday	06 Shawwal 1425

PPP march for Zardari's release on Dec 7
Bureau

HYDERABAD, Nov 18: The People's Party Parliamentarians has announced that it will stage a march from Hyderabad to Karachi on Dec 7 in support of its demands for the return of party chairperson Benazir Bhuttoand the release of her husband Asif Ali Zardari from jail.

Speaking at a news conference here on Thursday, the district general secretary of the party and former MPA Amin Lakho appealed to people to participate in the march.

He said the PPP was the largest political party of the country and it had carried out tremendous development programmes in the country when it was in power and generated job opportunities for tens of thousands of people.

Mr Lakho said Benazir Bhutto had been implicated in cases for giving jobs to the people. He wondered if generating employment opportunities for the jobless was a crime.

He said Asif Ali Zardari had been languishing in jail for the last eight years simply because he was the husband of Benazir Bhutto.

Mr Lakho said the country was in the grip of insurmountable problems where price hike, unemployment, lawlessness and chronic shortage of water had become the order of day. He said the people were killing their own children and then committing suicides due to poverty and unemployment.

He said despite an acute shortage of water in Sindh, the rulers were determined to build Kalabagh dam and greater Thal canal projects.He said the only panacea for all these ills was the return of Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan.

He said the rally of Dec 7 from Hyderabad to Mazar of Quaid would be led by the acting chairman of the party, Makhdoom Amin Faheem and Sindh president Qaim Ali Shah.

Mr Lakho said Asif Ali Zardari was a brave leader who had refused to compromise on principles and rejected all offers for a deal. He said it was regrettable that Asif Zardari was languishing in jail though former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat and the general secretary of the ruling party, Mushahid Hussain, had admitted that he was innocent.