October 09, 2006	Monday	Ramazan 15, 1427

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LAHORE, Oct 8: Federal minister Mahmood Ali has said Pakistan’s second prime minister Khwaja Nazimuddin was removed from his office for refusing to accept the American wheat aid under PL-480 programme.

“In contrast now dollars are raining in Pakistan,” he said.

Mr Ali, president of the Tehrik Takmeel-i-Pakistan, was speaking at an Iftar-dinner he had hosted for senior journalists at a local hotel on Saturday.

He said the US intervention in Pakistan’s affairs started since the removal of Khwaja Nazimuddin had continued and “things have not changed a bit.”

He said a section of the people had celebrated his removal as a day of deliverance.

He said: “I had protested against his removal as it was undemocratic, unconstitutional and illegal and asked him why he was removed.”

Khwaja Sahib replied that he had raised the wheat price by four annas (paisa 25) per maund only and had also refused to `sell’ Pakistan to America for its wheat. He said while all political leaders of former East Pakistan had spontaneously protested against Ayub Khan’s martial law declared at midnight on Oct 7, 1958, no politician from the western wing with the exception of Mir Jafar Khan Jamali had raised his voice against it.

They, however, started protesting against the martial law later in support of the East Pakistan’s leaders.

The minister said Ayub Khan in collusion with president Sikander Mirza had imposed martial law when the then prime minister Malik Feroze Khan Noon had announced his decision of holding the country’s first general elections under its new Constitution of 1956 on Feb 16, 1959. Elections were never held as the martial law regime had abrogated the Constitution, dissolved the Constituent Assembly and banned all political activity.

He said the East Pakistan leadership was unanimous in its demand for restoration of the Constitution and holding of general elections. He said the military rule that had started in 1958, had continued in the country in one form or the other till now. Had East Pakistan not been got separated Pakistan would have been a strong country in the world and its voice heard seriously, he said.

Mahmood Ali said even now Pakistan with a population of about 160 million was a force but it could become strong only when people were united and had one voice. He said there was a need for reviving the same spirit of the people to save the country from foreign intervention and dictation that had forced the British and the Hindus to accept the demand for Pakistan in 1947.

He said the people of Pakistan had demonstrated the similar spirit last year when they rushed to provide relief to the earthquake-affected areas. He said as many as 5,000 truckloads of relief goods had come from Karachi alone.

The federal minister said much of the foreign loans and grants promised by international community and donor agencies had not been honoured so far even after one year of the worst human tragedy. Mr Ali said he asked the president and the prime minister not to beg from the world but rely on the people of Pakistan who could contribute as much as pledged by the donors.

He recalled how he was able to collect Rs41 million by virtue of his personal efforts for the flood-affected people of Bangladesh.

Mahmood Ali said the Quaid-i-Azam wanted that Pakistan which the Muslim League had demanded in its Lahore Resolution in 1940, comprising whole of the Punjab, Bengal and Assam provinces of the pre-partition India, but he was forced to accept “moth-eaten and truncated Pakistan” after division of the three provinces.