January 04, 2008	Friday	Zilhaj 24, 1428

FAISALABAD, Jan 3: Had she been alive today (Jan 4), Benazir Bhutto would have been waving her hands to the slogan-shouting zealots of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Faisalabad. According to the plan of the late Bhutto, she was to address an election-related public gathering at Dhobi Ghat, the place where she made her first political appearance in 1977.

Ms Bhutto visited the district seven times during her political career, the first some 28 years ago when she joined the political arena only for her father’s struggle for democracy who was detained by the Ziaul Haq regime in Rawalpindi Jail.

The local PPP chapter worked a lot to make the Jan 4 show a big success, claiming that the welcome she would be accorded in the city would even surpass her historic 1986 welcome in Lahore.

PPP Divisional Coordinator Riaz Ahmed says that all PPP ticket holders for the polls had been directed to do their utmost to mobilise the people to accord a tumultuous reception to Ms Bhutto upon her visit to the city on Jan 4. He said different committees were also made to make the arrangements excellent.

Ms Bhutto was to visit the district after 10 years, last time she was here in 1997 to offer her condolence over the demise of a staunch leader Nayyar Hassan Dar’s son Imran Dar.

PPP city president Mehmoodul Hassan Dar told Dawn that he along with other party workers had welcomed the “Princess of Democracy” in 1977 when she had returned Pakistan after acquiring her graduation degree. She addressed a public gathering at Dhobi Ghat ground just after Ziaul Haq had jailed her father.

He said people were eager to see the leader on Jan 4 at the same park wherein she had started her political career.

“Instead of welcoming Ms Bhutto here, now we offered her symbolic funeral prayer at the same venue.”

After assassination of the Daughter of the East, local party chapter organised a symbolic funeral prayer at Dhobi Ghat Park on Dec 29, but the administration left water in the ground. Clearly exasperated over the administration’s move, party leaders selected the adjacent ground for the purpose wherein nearly 10,000 workers and people from different walks of life were present.

Addressing the congregation, PPP leaders condemning the act, saying the government’s negative tactics to obstruct workers had failed as thousands of activists and people had joined the prayer for the late Bhutto.

They also demanded registration of a case against the Chaudhrys for harming the unity of the federation and asked President Pervez Musharraf to step down.

Faryad Wahla, an old party worker who also worked with the ZAB, says he will never visit Dhobi Ghat Park in his life as it will remind him of the memories of the late Bhutto. The place, which was going to welcome

Ms Bhutto, turned into the funeral prayer place for the departed soul.